An option for China as it tries to help Huawei escape its mounting legal woes
- Slowly, we’re watching the world of technology cleave between China and the rest of the world, Ankit Panda writes
- The telecoms giant, which has become a symbol of China’s hi-tech pride, is under siege
Huawei’s problems went from very bad to worse as January wound to a close. The US Justice Department’s release of an indictment outlining the company’s alleged wrongdoing combined with the formal submission to Canada of an extradition request for its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, promise to keep Huawei’s fate high on the US-China agenda.
The indictment outlines the allegations that make up the basis of the United States’ case against the Chinese telecommunications giant. American prosecutors have underlined everything from the company’s practice of conferring bonuses on employees who succeeded in siphoning away privileged information from competitors to lies told by its senior management to US law enforcement about business activities with Iran.
The company is under siege, and the publicised details so far by the United States certainly outline allegations that point to a pattern of persistent rule-breaking. What is interesting is that the US still remains reluctant to introduce into the public record direct evidence of how Huawei equipment might directly aid and abet the PRC’s economic espionage or other efforts to harm American national security.
For the Chinese Communist Party, what should – but won’t – happen as a result of Huawei’s legal troubles in the West is a serious moment of soul-searching about the costs associated with its attempts to marry domestic political authoritarianism with the promotion of indigenous innovation.
Huawei’s global successes are without doubt part of why it has become so emblematic of the PRC’s national hi-tech pride, which is also why Meng’s arrest in Canada has been seen as nothing short of yet another instance of national humiliation. But the company now stands at the vanguard of a broader decoupling between the technology sectors of the West and the rest.
It’s not just the United States or Canada that are problems for Huawei. The European Union has started looking at serious proposals that would mean trouble for it. Concerns in particular about China’s National Intelligence Law have spurred the EU to weigh what may amount to a total de facto ban on Huawei technology within the Union.