United States: Huawei Back On A Blacklist

is yet another blow to relations between Washington and Beijing. The US telecoms regulator (FCC) has decided to put Huawei back on the blacklist of Chinese telecom equipment companies considered a threat to national security. The FCC believes that Huawei poses “an unacceptable risk” to national security, as do ZTE, Hytera Communications, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and Dahua Technology, but not Xiaomi, removed from this list.

“Americans rely more than ever on our networks to work, go to school or access health care, and we must have confidence in safe and secure communications,” Jessica Rosenworcel, Interim President of the FCC since Joe Biden took office in January. “This list sets the direction so that, as the next generation of networks are built across the country, they do not repeat the mistakes of the past and do not use equipment or services that will pose a threat to the national security of states. “United or the safety and security of Americans,” she added.

Waiting for a court decision for Xiaomi

Chinese phone maker Xiaomi must be temporarily removed from a blacklist placed by the Trump administration, according to a ruling by a judge in the federal capital Washington, pending a court ruling on the bottom. The American Secretariats for Defense and the Treasury, which had placed the Chinese company on this blacklist, “have not shown that the national security interests at stake here were imperative,” said the judge, in a decision that Agence France-Presse was able to consult.

Xiaomi is to be removed from this list, at least temporarily, and the ban on US investors from buying Xiaomi shares is suspended. It is also forbidden to qualify it as a “Chinese Communist Military Company”. For Huawei, this decision, which is in line with those taken by the Trump administration, shower the hopes of its founder and boss Ren Zhengfei, who had called in February the Biden administration to “a policy of openness” . He had also wanted reassurance on the “survival” of the group despite American sanctions.

Trade war

The telecoms juggernaut has been at the center of the Sino-American rivalry for several years, against the backdrop of a trade and technological war between the two leading world powers. Huawei had found itself in the crosshairs of the former Trump administration, which accused it, without providing any evidence, of potential espionage for the benefit of Beijing. In 2019, the company had already been placed on a blacklist by the United States, which had prohibited American companies from selling them “made in the USA” technologies such as semiconductors and other components that were essential for its operations. products, citing national security concerns.

Ren Zhengfei’s daughter, Meng Wanzhou, who is also a Huawei executive, has been on probation in Canada since her arrest in Vancouver in late 2018 at the request of the United States, for having circumvented American sanctions against Iran. She is now threatened with extradition to the United States for bank fraud.


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