Huawei Seen As A Security Threat in the UK

Huawei is known to be one of the leading smartphone manufacturers in the world today, they are even known to be on the same level as Apple and Samsung, but the United States President Donald Trump once accused not just Huawei, but other Chinese tech companies of stealing intellectual properties. This of course affected Huawei the most, since other nations such as Australia and the United Kingdom to be skeptical about them, which may lead to a ban of their products.

Alleged Security Threat Towards UK

The Financial Times reported last weekend that Huawei has officially pledged $2 billion to be able to alleviate the concerns of the British security agency because of the Chinese tech giant’s allegedly threat in its equipment and software.

This week, it was also reported that the senior officials of the GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Center already had a meeting with the executives of Huawei regarding the issue. It was revealed that Huawei has agreed on some terms to be able to continue serving in the United Kingdom, which involved the $2 billion commission. However, it was exactly revealed what exact details does the agreement entails. Despite that, it was said that the company has agreed to write a formal letter to address the issue.

This has been such a major issue since it was rumored that Huawei will actually be involved with the 5G network development in the UK, but this was denied by the British telecommunications firm BT. This is not considered to be surprising according to some tech experts since their reputation is not exactly good with the United States, New Zealand, and Australia banning them.

In a statement that was released but the NCSC spokesperson a couple of days ago, it was said that the NCSC is just trying to make sure that the technical issues will be addressed and will be improved. It was also said the British government and telecommunications department is working with Huawei in order to manage the cyber security risks, and at the same time making sure that the U.K. will actually end up benefiting from it.

When asked to make a statement regarding this issue, Huawei refused to comment. Unfortunately, keeping quiet about things wouldn’t stop it from escalating quickly that may end up not favoring them. Just like what happened recently with their CFO while in Canada, which was said to be an order from the US government.

Huawei CFO Arrested

Huawei may be facing some issues with the United Kingdom at the moment regarding some cybersecurity matters, but that is not the only thing the Chinese tech giant is dealing with at the moment. That is because last week, Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou or Sabrina Meng was arrested in Canada and it was requested why the US government.

This, of course, angered the Chinese government and investors were alarmed by the news. Meng is not only the CFO of the company, but she is actually the daughter of Ren Zhengfei who is the founder of Huawei. Canadian Justice Department spokesperson Ian McLeod said that the Huawei CFO was sought for extradition by the US. He also revealed that those are the only details that he can share to the press.

Chinese tech experts believe that this is a move that the US had to make since Huawei has been selling way more products than Apple, and accused them of stealing intellectual properties from it as well as serving as a national security threat. Some analysts also believe that this will totally affect the US-China trade wars, despite the truce that was agreed upon by both United States President Donald Trump with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Earlier today, Vancouver judge decided to set a $7.5 million bail for Meng. It is expected that she will bail herself out since her family are billionaires after all. The conditions for the bail is for the Huawei princess to surrender her passport, always wear a GPS tracking device, and for a security detail to accompany her every single time she leaves her own property, so that her every move will be watched in case she does something that may be considered as a cyber threat. In a recent statement, Huawei said that they will follow the conditions as all the laws both Canada and United States have applied.