The hits keep coming for Huawei. The latest jabs include the U.S. not allowing the China-based vendor to send some of the technologies developed at its Silicon Valley subsidiary back to China, and the arrest of a Huawei employee in Poland charged with spying for the Chinese government.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the U.S. Commerce Department sent a letter to Futurewei, Huawei’s Santa Clara, California-based research-and-development unit, stating that it intends to deny Futurewei’s application to renew its export license because of national security concerns. The license reportedly covered the export of telecommunications technology and software, including high-speed data-transfer technology. The technology had an operating budget of more than $16 million and involved more than 40 full-time employees.
While the move isn’t fatal because the majority of technologies that Futurewei exports don’t require a license, it is another blow to the embattled Chinese telecommunications giant that may face an outright ban of its telecom gear in the U.S. Canadian authorities last month arrested Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou, who is also the daughter of the founder of Huawei, at the request of the United States.
More ArrestsPolish authorities said they arrested a Chinese Huawei employee and an Orange employee, who is a Polish citizen, and charged them with espionage. The Huawei employee is head of the company’s sales in Poland.
A Huawei spokesman told The New York Times that the company “complies with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries where it operates.” Orange declined to comment but confirmed that law enforcement raided its office.
In December, T-Mobile Poland, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, announced the launch of what it described as the “first fully functional” 5G network in the Eastern European country with the support of Huawei. And Orange in Spain is reportedly planning to use Huawei equipment in its 5G pilots.
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