We have been following the developments related to Canada’s arrest of China’s Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, who faces extradition to the United States on suspicion she violated U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.
The Department of Justice officially unsealed charges against the tech giant, the executive, and several subsidiaries, alleging the company stole trade secrets and misled banks about its business…as well as violating U.S. sanctions.
The sweeping indictments accuse the company of using extreme efforts to steal trade secrets from American businesses — including trying to take a piece of a robot from a T-Mobile lab.The executive charged is Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada last month. The U.S. is seeking to extradite her, alleging she committed fraud by misleading banks about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran.David Martin, Meng’s lawyer in Canada, didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Meng is out on bail in Vancouver and her case is due back in court Tuesday as she awaits extradition proceedings to begin.
Meanwhile, the Chinese team arrived in Washington, DC, for critical talks to end the trade war. There are concerns that the charges add uncertainty to the success of the trade talks.
Beijing has denounced the indictment as politically motivated and immoral….“Perhaps it is to put on pressure on China, but China’s domestic politics looks so bad if they cut a deal. That doesn’t look good. I wonder about the calculus,” a former senior US trade negotiator said on condition of anonymity.“If it was still at the USTR {office of the US Trade Representative] I would have guessed this was coming – but the arrest would have been a big surprise. However, the indictment would definitely be disruptive, if I am preparing for the negotiations.”
Our previous reports indicated that China had arrested 3 Canadian citizens in the wake of the arrest of Meng. Subsequently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired Canada’s ambassador to China, John McCallum.
Mr McCallum caused controversy on Tuesday when he publicly argued that the US extradition request for Ms Meng was seriously flawed.The next day he issued a statement saying that he “misspoke” and regretted that his comments had created “confusion”.But on Friday he was quoted as saying it would be “great for Canada” if the US dropped the request.
Other countries are making moves against Huawei. Poland will exclude the firm, from its future 5G network in favor of European players.
Polish government officials are talking to European Union and North American allies on the next steps but haven’t determined which telecoms equipment maker might replace Huawei, the sources said.“Arresting a spy means end of the discussion,” said a government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I think the Chinese will not be present in 5G in Poland.”
China’s Huawei has been excluded from a Czech tender to build a tax portal after warnings of possible security threats posed by the telecoms supplier.
The Czech Finance Ministry amended a tender for a new tax portal for filing returns, documentation on online registries showed.The ministry said the tender could “not allow producers that are subject to a current warning by the NUKIB [National Cyber and Information Security Agency],” referring to the Czech cyber security agency.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY