Huawei CFO Meng arrested on behalf of the US

Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng was arrested in Canada on 1 December, after the US opened an investigation into acts with Iran in April. Earlier this year Trump already fined ZTE and blocked the takeover of Qualcomm by Broadcom in order not to give China a lead in the 5G race.

The judgment of Wanzhou Meng, CFO of Huawei and daughter of the Huawei founder, is not well received in China. According to Bloomberg, the Chinese Embassy in Canada is demanding that Meng be released immediately.

Meng was handcuffed in Canada on behalf of the US after a lengthy investigation into collaborations between Huawei and Iran (as well as North Korea and Syria) in the field of telecommunications. The original research was started in 2016. The US has now reached its conclusions and arrested Meng. On Friday, December 7, the bail session will take place. The arrest took place on 1 December, but has only now been published.

5G voltages

The U.S. has been investigating Huawei for some time. In April 2018, it launched an additional investigation into the supply of equipment to Iran. The details of the investigation are unclear for the time being, but the US is taking action. Earlier this year Trump set its sights on ZTE with a fine of 1.2 billion dollars for trade with Iran and North Korea. It also had to temporarily shut down its activities in the US.

In August, Trump passed another bill to ban all Huawei equipment from any government agency. He also openly puts pressure on befriended countries to ignore Huawei for future 5G investments. Australia is following Trump’s advice and New Zealand has also recently refused Huawei telecom equipment. The United Kingdom is currently considering what to do.

China’s embassy in Canada on Thursday demanded the immediate release of Chinese national Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested by Canadian police at the request of the US, even though she hasn’t violated any US or Canadian laws, calling the move a serious violation of human rights. pic.twitter.com/wM5HqFrjde

– People’s Daily,China (@PDChina) December 6,2018

Huawei has also responded officially in the meantime: Our company has received very little information about the accusations and is not aware of any errors made by Ms. Meng. We believe that the Canadian and American legal systems will draw the right conclusion.

Trade War

The arrest of Wanzhou Meng happened on the same day that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping had dinner together in Buenos Aires. The two superpowers have been fighting against each other for some time now in an ever-increasing trade war. This arrest will significantly increase the tensions between the two.

According to Bloomberg, Huawei is by far the largest Chinese company that is active worldwide. It operates across Africa, Asia and Europe and is the market leader in telecommunications. With telecom providers investing heavily in 5G technology worldwide, Trump is making it a priority to keep Chinese equipment out of the US and other countries. He also blocked the takeover of Qualcomm by Broadcom earlier because this would give China the lead in the 5G race.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.