Meet the legal watchdog who’s keeping ZTE in line with US export control laws
Former US federal prosecutor is now the most powerful man at ZTE. Here’s all you need to know about the man, his role and what he can do to China’s second-biggest telecoms provider
ZTE Corp, China’s second largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, is rapidly moving to get its business back on track more than two months after Washington lifted a ban that stopped the company from buying software, chips and other components from US technology suppliers.
Its future, however, has become inextricably linked to how dutifully the Chinese company complies with US export control laws, the assessment of which is the task of former federal prosecutor Roscoe Howard Jnr.
Based in Washington, Howard was named as the special compliance coordinator for ZTE on August 24 by the US Department of Commerce. It is an independent role that provides a US executive with sweeping authority over the business of a multibillion-dollar Chinese technology company, listed in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen, with operations in more than 160 countries.
That appointment forms part of what US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has described as “unprecedented measures imposed” on the Chinese telecoms gear maker for selling telecoms network equipment to Iran and North Korea, the shipments of which violated long-standing US trade sanctions on those two countries.
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