Home » Business » Washington sanctions Huawei, Pompeo UK employees

Washington sanctions Huawei, Pompeo UK employees

The United States announced on Wednesday sanctions against employees of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, further accentuating its campaign of pressure on China, which summoned the American ambassador to Beijing.

Tensions between the world’s top two economies have escalated on multiple fronts, from China’s imposition in late June of a draconian national security law in Hong Kong, to Beijing’s land claims in the South China Sea, in going through repression against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, in northwest China.

President Donald Trump ended Tuesday the preferential economic regime granted by the United States to Hong Kong and signed a law providing for sanctions against the repression in the former British colony.

China responded by threatening Washington with reprisals and summoning the US ambassador to Beijing, Terry Branstad.

On Wednesday, US Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would impose visa restrictions on employees of Chinese technology companies, such as Huawei, if they “provide material support” to human rights abuses.

“Telecommunication groups around the world can consider themselves forewarned: if they do business with Huawei, they do business with perpetrators of human rights abuses,” said Pompeo during a press conference. .

Pompeo also welcomed the British government’s decision to cut ties with Huawei, announcing that it will travel to the UK and Denmark next week.

– “Fast travel” –

“I’m going on Monday for a quick trip to the UK and Denmark,” he said. “I am sure that the Chinese Communist Party and the threats it poses to free people around the world will head the agenda.”

The Donald Trump administration is pressuring the United States’ allies to reject Huawei, the world leader in 5G, which Washington considers to be a tool of oppression for the Chinese regime.

They accuse Huawei of offering interception capabilities on its equipment to Chinese intelligence services, which the equipment supplier fiercely denies

They got a victory on Tuesday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to purge the UK’s 5G network of any equipment produced by Huawei due to a risk to national security.

The purchase of new Huawei equipment will be prohibited after December 31, 2020 and existing equipment will have to be removed by 2027.

The American sanctions imposed in May on the Chinese giant, intended to cut Huawei’s access to semiconductors manufactured with American components, weighed in the British decision. London is concerned about the group’s use of replacement components that could pose new cybersecurity risks.

But Pompeo said the London decision was not due to US pressure.

“I am sure they did this because their security experts came to the same conclusions as ours,” he said.

“The information that passes through these networks of Chinese origin will certainly end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party,” he added.

Pompeo accuses Huawei of committing human rights abuses by allowing the Chinese regime to monitor dissidents and implement large-scale surveillance technologies in Xinjiang, where more human rights groups say ‘one million Uighurs and Muslims are imprisoned.

Donald Trump also accused Beijing of hiding the first Covid-19 cases in Wuhan (south) late last year.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.