There seems to be no respite for Huawei in its debacle with the US government which has repeatedly accused the tech giant of spying for the Chinese government. The US may have just added another accusation and it bothers on human rights abuses. In a press briefing Wednesday, U.S Secretary of States Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would impose visa restrictions on Chinese companies like Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, which he accused of facilitating human right violations.
According to Pompeo, Huawei provides material support to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a regime which he says engages in human rights violations and abuses globally. He also stated that telecoms companies around the world “should consider themselves on notice” that if they do business with Huawei, “they are doing business with human rights abusers.”
To this end, the US Secretary of States told a news conference the State Department would “impose visa restrictions on certain employees of Chinese technology companies like Huawei that provide material support to regimes engaging in human rights violations and abuses globally.”
“Certain Huawei employees provide material support to the CCP regime that commits human rights abuses,” the statement said.
In a separate statement referring to alleged abuses against China’s minority Muslim population, Pompeo charged that Huawei was “an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state that censors political dissidents and enables mass internment camps in Xinjiang and the indentured servitude of its population shipped all over China.”
Pompeo also said that “faster is always better” in terms of getting Huawei out of telecoms infrastructure when asked about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s order that Huawei equipment should be purged completely from Britain’s 5G network by the end of 2027.
Huawei has repeatedly denied it spies for China. The company accused the United States of trying to frustrate its growth because no U.S. company offers the same technology at a competitive price.
Huawei is yet to react to this latest development. When asked about the company’s response to Pompeo’s remarks, a Huawei spokeswoman hinted that the company was looking into it and would share their response when available.
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