Meng Wanzhou

The lengthy detention of a former Huawei employee has triggered public outrage in China towards the tech giant as well as the country’s justice system.  Li Hongyuan, who worked at Huawei for 12 years, was detained for 251 days from December 2018, after the company apparently accused him of extortion. He was eventually released, he said, because prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to press charges against him.  The case became one of the most discussed topics on Chinese social media over the past week since legal documents about Li began circulating, sparking an online debate about the power of big corporations. Li later confirmed in multiple interviews that the documents were genuine. I

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is ending its funding ties with Chinese telecoms giants Huawei and ZTE, citing the risks of such arrangements in the light of US federal investigations of the two companies. MIT’s move is the latest in a series of blows to the Chinese telecoms giants, both of which have struggled in the face of high-level opposition to their activities in the US market. Lawmakers allege that the equipment they sell – key components in mobile phone network infrastructure – could become cybersecurity threats. The announcement by the prestigious academic institution – rated third in the US News and World Report’s ranking of American universities – follows similar moves by S

Beijing has publicly thrown its weight behind tech giant Huawei’s move to sue the US government, and called upon Chinese companies not to be “silent lambs.” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi took the opportunity to back Huawei at a press conference on the sidelines of China’s annual political meetings on Friday, a day after the company’s filing of a lawsuit against the US government in a bid to overturn a federal ban on its equipment. “We support the company and the individual in question in seeking legal redress to protect their own interests and refusing to be victimized like silent lambs,” Wang said. What we are standing up for is not just the interest of a company but also a nation’s righ

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has sued the American government and accused it of hacking, a move that is likely to raise the stakes in a legal and technological fight between the United States and China. Huawei has filed a lawsuit against the US government in a bid to overturn a ban on its products, the company said on Thursday in Shenzhen. It also accused the US of previously hacking into its servers, though it provided no fresh evidence to support the charge. The lawsuit and the hacking accusation could force the US government to disclose in more detail its case against Huawei, as it seeks to shut out the Chinese telecoms equipment maker from building the next-generation 5G mobile network

China has upped the ante over its detention of two Canadians, accusing the pair of acting together to steal state secrets just days after Ottawa decided to proceed with an extradition hearing for a Chinese tech executive. China’s arrest of the two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, had ignited indignation in the international community. The arrests of the two men coincided with the detention of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecom firm Huawei, in December in Vancouver, and are widely seen as an act of retaliation by Beijing, despite repeated denials that this is the case by Chinese officials. Meng faces an extradition hearing on fraud charges – punishable unde

The United States has filed charges against Huawei and its Chief Financial Officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, calling the Chinese tech giant a threat to US national security.  According to two indictments unsealed on Monday, Huawei has been accused of a string of wrongdoings including violations of Iran sanctions, bank fraud and technology theft. The documents cite extensive evidence against the tech giant, often hailed as a symbol of Chinese innovation, from investigations that appear to have been assembled over the course of at least 12 years.  Huawei has denied all the accusations made in the indictments, while the Chinese government called the charges immoral and politically-motivated.  So wh

The United States has informed the Canadian government that it plans to proceed with a formal request to extradite a Chinese tech executive, Canada’s Globe and Mail reported on Tuesday. The US is seeking Huawei’s chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou on allegations of banking fraud related to violations of US sanctions against Iran. As a result of her arrest in Vancouver in December at the request of the US, China appears to have been tightening the screws on Canada, which has been caught in the middle of a dispute between the two countries. Since Meng’s arrest, Beijing has detained two Canadians and imposed a death penalty on a third Canadian convicted of drug-smuggling charges. The

There are legal, political and technological facets to the Huawei incident that bear further examination. Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese electronics company, was arrested in Canada in December on fraud charges involving United States sanctions on Iran. From a legal perspective, it must be noted that the case is not that Huawei allegedly used a subsidiary to skirt US sanctions on selling US technology to Iran.  If that were the case, the argument of Columbia University professor Jeffrey D. Sachs – that Meng is being treated unfairly because the CEOs and CFOs of many companies guilty of similar offenses have never been arrested – would hold water. But, accord

After being behind bars for more than a week and placed under international scrutiny following her arrest in Canada earlier this month, Sabrina Meng has finally been granted a breather. Accused of fraud tied to American sanctions on Iran, the 46-year-old chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei was released on bail on Tuesday night. But while she has since found home comforts in her six-bedroom house in a leafy Vancouver neighborhood, Meng faces possible extradition to the United States and a jail sentence of more than 30 years if convicted. The accusations against Meng have filled her supporters with indignation and mushroomed into a diplomatic crisis between Canada and Chi

Arguing that the arrested Huawei executive Sabrina Meng was a flight risk, American prosecutors revealed on Friday that Meng had been issued at least seven passports. The arrest of Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer and a daughter of its founder, has touched a raw nerve in China, where the telecoms giant is seen as a poster child of the country’s technological achievement. The passports included at least four from mainland China and three from Hong Kong, a letter from the US Department of Justice suggested at Meng’s bail hearing on Friday, when accusations of fraud against her emerged and raised the stakes in the US-China tech rivalry. But more than the fraud allegations, the claim that