Huawei founder says CFO arrest was politically motivated
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said on Monday that America's arrest of his daughter, the company's Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, was politically motivated.
Meng was arrested on 1 December 2018 in Canada after Washington petitioned Ottawa for her detention on charges of violating US sanctions against Iran.
“Firstly, I object to what the U.S. has done. This kind of politically motivated act is not acceptable,” Ren told the BBC in an interview. “There is no way the US can crush us”.
The US Justice Department denied claims that the arrest was politically motivated.
“The Justice Department’s criminal case against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou is based solely on the evidence and the law. The Department pursues cases free of any political interference and follows the evidence and rule of law in pursuing criminal charges,” spokeswoman Nicole Navas told Reuters.
Huawei is one of several Chinese companies accused by the US of working at the orders of the Chinese government and of being involved in spying on American tech firms and of intellectual property theft.
“The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced. Even if they [US] persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit,” Ren added.
He also said that if the US does not trust the company, then a lot of business carried out there will shift to the UK.
The spat comes just one day after the UK's National Cyber Security Centre decided that any risk posed by using Huawei technology in UK telecoms projects can be managed, albeit following a period of uncertainty over the company’s involvement in the development of the 5G network.
Commenting on the possibility of a UK ban, Mr Ren told the BBC that Huawei "won't withdraw our investment because of this. We will continue to invest in the UK. We still trust in the UK, and we hope that the UK will trust us even more.”