Things are in turmoil in China, specifically within Huawei . It was revealed today that the US has requested the arrest of the Chinese company's chief financial officer, accusing her of allegedly violating sanctions imposed against Iran. This is all that is known at the moment.
Alleged violation of sanctions against Iran
Although the news broke today, it was actually on December 1st that everything happened. Meng Wanzhou , the chief financial officer of the telecommunications company Huawei and daughter of the company's founder, Ren Zhengfei, was arrested on that day.
The arrest took place in Vancouver, Canada, but the warrant came from the US, which accuses the executive of allegedly violating economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the North American country, as confirmed by the Canadian Department of Justice. For the time being, Wanzhou—pictured below seated—remains in custody awaiting a court hearing tomorrow, Friday, December 7, at which it will be decided whether she will be released on bail or extradited to the US.
As noted, the US would have been investigating Huawei since 2016 for sending products of US origin to Iran, a country against which it tightened its sanctions just a month ago.
Huawei itself has confirmed this situation in a statement in which it complains about the lack of information it is receiving from the US and, of course, defends its CFO against the accusations, pointing out that the company complies with all current export controls and respects US regulations:
The company has received very little information regarding the charges and is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng. The company believes that the Canadian and American legal systems will finally come to a fair conclusion," she said in a statement posted on social media.
The Chinese Embassy in Canada has also expressed its opposition to this detention and demanded her immediate release, filing a formal complaint with both Canada and the US, at a time when relations between the United States and China are strained due to their ongoing trade war. A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry went so far as to say that Meng Wanzhou's detention " violates the human rights of the detainee."
As far as Huawei is concerned, the US has long been obsessed with the fact that the firm poses a threat to national security because of the ties that the Asian company has with the Chinese Government and, in fact, does not buy servers from the manufacturer (since 2011) nor are the company's phones used in the Pentagon - this latter measure was taken this same year.
This new episode will not exactly help a better understanding between the parties. Tomorrow we can find out what's going on with Meng Wanzhou. We will continue to inform you, don't worry.