As if being dubbed “China’s first global capitalist” didn’t already imply a role fraught with complications, Yang Yuanqing this week faces a fresh conundrum.

When The Times met the chairman of Lenovo, the world’s third-largest computer maker, he was in Paris marshalling a planned acquisition of Packard Bell. The deal was formulated to boost Lenovo’s presence in the European consumer PC market, a key plank in Mr Yang's stated mission to forge Lenovo into "a pioneer company" – China’s first truly global brand.

Just hours later, those plans were upended when it emerged that Acer, Lenovo’s Taiwanese arch rival, had agreed a friendly $710 million (£353 million) acquisition of Gateway, a US-based peer that holds an option to buy Packard Bell.

For the moment, however, Mr Yang, 42, who acquired the “global capitalist” tag after spearheading Lenovo’s $1.75 billion acquisition of IBM’s laptop business two years ago, appears fixed on his latest quarry. Faced, analysts suggest, with a paucity of alternatives, Lenovo has insisted that it remains "interested” in Packard Bell, a company that could command a price approaching $800 million, raising the prospect of a possible bidding war for Gateway.

Meanwhile, Acer’s battle against Lenovo is, inevitably, being billed as a proxy contest between mainland China and Taiwan.

“We have faced challenges in that regard,” the exceptionally personable Mr Yang admitted when asked about the emphasis often placed on Lenovo’s origins.

Much has been made of the Chinese Government’s interest in the group. Lenovo was founded in 1984, when 11 researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) were given $25,000 by the institution. “Not so different from an American company getting seed funding from Stanford,” Mr Yang argues.

The state-funded CAS, which, somewhat surprisingly, lists “democracy” as one of its “values” on its English-language website, remains Lenovo’s largest shareholder. That link has fuelled unflattering suggestions that Lenovo is led by “puppets”, the strings pulled in Beijing.

And so, when Lenovo won a $13 million tender to supply the US State Department with computers last year, Lou Dobbs, the CNN anchorman, told American viewers that Washington had "turned to Communist China" for its IT needs, thus rendering the United States "perhaps more vulnerable than ever".

Michael R. Wessel, an adviser to Congress on such matters, said that the State Department’s use of Lenovo computers could potentially provide China with access to "some of our deepest secrets". Never mind, it seemed, that the PCs destined for the State Department were to be assembled in North Carolina, some distance from Red China.

It is hard to square such charges – the stuff of spy fiction – with the unremittingly internationalist Mr Yang, a man who says his favourite book is Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat, a tome embraced by cheerleaders of globalisation the world over.

“I had lunch with Tom in Washington,” he says. “I agree with his conclusion: that to be a successful global company you have to use worldwide resources and talents.”

Raise the question of potential political interference, however, and the affable Mr Yang takes a decidedly harder line, dismissing any suggestion that Beijing’s political classes impinge on his decision making. “Business is business, “ he says flatly. “Lenovo has always been run by its founders. The Government has never been involved in its strategy.”

Building his case, Mr Yang points out that Lenovo counts ten nationalities among its “top 20 executives”, including William Amelio, an American chief executive. Following the IBM deal, he notes, TPG and General Atlantic, two US-based hedge fund investors, took seats on the Lenovo board.

“This is an important fact,” Mr Yang says. “To ensure the [IBM acquisition] was successful, we thought it was very important to make a transition from being a Chinese company to an international company … from shareholders, to managers, to board structure.”

He goes on to explain how Lenovo is currently rolling out a new global business model, targeting consumers and small businesses across two test markets: Germany and India. “If we can succeed in these two places, we can succeed anywhere,” Mr Yang reasons.

Sharply improved first-quarter figures suggested that the IBM deal is finally delivering results after a fraught integration that Mr Yang likened to “painful surgery”. However, there is still a way to go if Lenovo is to be considered a top-tier player. Last year the Chinese group reported revenues of about $15 billion, a figure that Dell, the No 2 PC maker, matched in the fourth quarter alone.

Lenovo's recent growth has largely been limited to the business market that was IBM's stronghold. Advances in selling PCs to the general public have been painfully slow, a key reason why Lenovo took aim for Packard Bell.

“It’s not my role to describe myself,” Mr Yang said, when asked his thoughts on that “global capitalist” moniker. Instead, he preferred to focus on Lenovo itself, “a pioneer Chinese company. The first … to adopt a market-driven mechanism … the first, I hope, of many.”

The coming days and weeks could prove key if Mr Yang's vision of Lenovo as a pathfinder for Chinese businesses on the global stage is to be realised.

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