China sees red over arrest of Huawei chief

by WorldTribune Staff, December 9, 2018

China’s Foreign Ministry has summoned U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad in response to the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou and vowed to take “further action” if needed.

Court sketch of Meng Wanzhou during her bail hearing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. / Reuters

Meng was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 on the orders of U.S. authorities for allegedly violating American sanctions on selling technology to Iran.

A White House report earlier this year identified China’s Huawei Technologies, which has been identified as a national security threat by the Pentagon, as partnering with the University of California-Berkeley on artificial intelligence and machine learning programs that have military applications, Geostrategy-Direct.com reported.

Related: White House report details Chinese theft of ‘future of the world’ technology, June 26, 2008.

The Huawei executive was spending the weekend in a Vancouver jail after a decision on whether to grant bail was not reached.

Canada’s ambassador to China was also summoned to the ministry. China regularly calls in foreign diplomats to register complaints.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said the U.S.’s actions have violated the “legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and are extremely bad in nature,” according to a posting on the ministry website.

“China will take further action based on the U.S. actions.”

The U.S. on Dec. 7 in a Vancouver courtroom alleged that Meng had hidden Huawei’s ties to a company called Skycom that did business in Iran, said a lawyer representing Canada during the court hearing. Canada presented the case on behalf of the U.S., which wants to extradite Meng.

Meanwhile, Japan announced that it will ban government use of telecom products from Huawei and ZTE over national security concerns.

“Ensuring the cyber security of government agencies has become increasingly important. We will deal with the matter from various perspectives,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.


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