In a move which is akin to that which certain countries have been criticised internationally for – Canada has chosen to arrest the Chief Executive of Huawei the Chinese telecoms giant. This move took place when she was changing planes and so far there is no indication as to why? All we know at the moment is that Meng Wanzhou could face extradition to the US and it could be concerning possible violations of sanctions against Iran. However, this seems like an extreme move and one which had it been undertaken by China would have led to international outcry.
The timing is terrible given that President Trump and Trump and President Xi had just agreed on a halt to the impending trade war, which will now be jepordised. Further, if the US had wanted to explore the actions further why not request a meeting? This all seems very heavy-handed and potentially very embarrassing for the US, not that President Trump will be bothered given his penchant for being controversial.
There seems to be a concerted campaign against Huawei at the moment, with security fears being used by the US and Australia as a reason to slam the door on them as 5G is rolled out.
In the last few weeks, New Zealand became the latest country to bar local networks from using Huawei’s 5G gear based on fears over the firm’s independence from the Chinese Government, while BT has also indicated they won’t use their technology either. To be fair there could be concerns regarding China’s National Intelligence Law passed in 2017 that says organisations must “support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work”. However, the US has its own version the 2018 CLOUD Act which allows federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers, regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil.
Of course, good old fashioned protectionism could be at play here too as President “America First” Trump seeks to safeguard the market dominance in the sector of American companies like Cisco, Qualcomm, and to a lesser degree IBM, and of course Huawei is now the worlds 2nd largest mobile phone provider having overtaken Apple by market share.
Huawei P20 flagship offering. Now the 2nd most popular Mobile Phone Brand.
Karlis Dambrans/Shutterstock
