Huawei to be major topic in US-China trade talks, White House adviser John Bolton says
- US national security adviser highlights practice of Chinese firms using stolen American intellectual property to engage in forced technology transfers
- Bolton was aware of plan to arrest Huawei CFO going into US-China trade negotiations on December 1
Global Chinese tech firms like Huawei, whose chief financial officer is expected to be extradited to the United States by Canada, will be a “major subject” of discussion between the US and Chinese governments over the course their trade negotiations, US national security adviser John Bolton said on Thursday.
The US had enormous concerns for years “about the practice of Chinese firms to use stolen American intellectual property to engage in forced technology transfers, and to be used, really, as arms of the Chinese government’s objectives in terms of information technology in particular”, Bolton said in an interview with National Public Radio.
“Huawei is one company we’ve been concerned about,” the senior White House adviser said. “There are others as well. I think this is going to be a major subject of the negotiations that President Trump and President Xi Jinping agreed to in Buenos Aires.”
The company has been in the US government’s cross hairs for some time, having been banned from bidding for government contracts in 2014.
In 2017, Huawei was identified in a US Defence Department report into China’s technology transfer strategy as a “national champion” favoured by Beijing. The company was one of the vehicles through which the government sought to “accomplish [its] larger economic goals”, the report said.