Chinese manufacturer Huawei is a rather huge corporation. Even though the company is the worlds largest telecommunications equipment maker, it is relatively unknown to the consumers of the West. Interestingly, security officials in the United States have accused the company of spying, and in particular claim that the Huawei equipment allows for unauthorized access by the Chinese government and the PLA (the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army)!
Even though the company has, of course, denied the accusations, Huawei`s CEO Ren Zhengfei, once had ties to the PLA during the 1980s...
But that`s not all the accusations Huawei has to deal with. The company has also been accused of immigration violations, bribery and corruption.What is more interesting though, is that the Chinese maker has faced similar accusations not just in the United States but also in Australia, India and the United Kingdom.
Moreover according to an Economist report, the company has once
bragged to the Iranian government that the equipment it makes is good for spying...Will the trouble with the U.S. authorities be enough to make the manufacturer exit the American market altogether, then?If Huawei gets in the middle of U.S.-China relations, its not worth it Zhengfei said. There, we have decided to exit the U.S. market, and not stay in the middle.
Zhengfei`s statement about exiting the U.S. market though doesn`t seem to be unanimous;
in an interview with Foreign Policy,
Huawei`s Vice President William Plummer said the maker has just adjusted its priority to Europe, adding that CEO Zhengfei was merely commenting on the current market environment.
No matter if Huawei will end-up leaving the United States though, it is for the first time in recent history that such strong and direct accusations have been placed upon a foreign manufacturer in America.
According to U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman,
Mike Rogers,
Huawei`s offerings cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems.
Would you buy a Chinese smartphone that spies on you then? For sure many would rather have NSA spying on them rather than
the
Chinese Peoples Liberation Army!
