By NORMAN PEARLSTINE, DAVID PIERSON, ROBYN DIXON, DAVID S. CLOUD, ALICE SU AND MAX HAO LU Standing on Huawei Technologies Co.’s sprawling new campus near Shenzhen, it’s hard to conceive that Ren Zhengfei, backed by five friends of friends, could have single-handedly turned his tiny start-up into a technology-driven colossus. Standing on Huawei Technologies Co.’s sprawling new campus near Shenzhen, it’s hard to conceive that Ren Zhengfei, backed by five friends of friends, could have single-handedly turned his tiny start-up into a technology-driven colossus. How could Ren, then in his 40s and possessing no intellectual property, have grown Huawei into the world’s biggest seller of telecommunications equipment and one of the largest makers of smartphones, with 188,000 employees in 170 countries? In fact, it’s entirely unbelievable, according to the U.S. government. Washington would have you believe Huawei’s official history is a sham — that Huawei is effectively a creation of the Chinese government and that its success is based on Ren’s close ties to intelligence units within the People’s Liberation Army. Huawei’s leadership unequivocally rejects the suggestion. While Huawei’s origins and its independence are in dispute, its accomplishments and ambitions are not.Huawei has taken an early lead in developing the…