(Washington) The United States announced on Wednesday sanctions against employees of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, further accentuating its campaign of pressure on China, which summoned the US ambassador to Beijing.
Posted on 15 July 2020 at 12 h 12 Updated at 16 h 28
Shaun TANDON
France Media Agency
Tensions between the two leading world economies have worsened on multiple fronts, from the imposition at the end of June by China of a draconian national security law in Hong Kong, to the Beijing land claims in the sea of South China, through the repression against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, in the northwest of China.
President Donald Trump ended Tuesday the preferential economic regime granted by the United States to Hong Kong and signed a law providing for sanctions against the repression in the former British colony.
China responded by threatening Washington with reprisals and summoning the US ambassador to Beijing, Terry Branstad.
On Wednesday, US Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo announced that the United States will impose visa restrictions on employees of Chinese technology companies, such as Huawei, if they provide “material support” to violations of human rights.
“Telecommunication groups around the world can consider themselves forewarned: if they do business with Huawei, they do business with perpetrators of human rights violations,” said Mr. Pompeo during a press conference.
M. Pompeo also welcomed the British government's decision to cut ties with Huawei, announcing that it will travel to the United Kingdom and Denmark next week.
“Fast travel”
“I'm going on Monday for a quick trip to the UK and Denmark,” he said. “I am sure that the Chinese Communist Party and the threats it poses to free people around the world will be at the top of the agenda.”
The Donald Trump administration is pressuring the United States' allies to reject Huawei, the world leader in 5G, which Washington considers to be a tool of oppression for the Chinese regime.
They accuse Huawei of offering interception capabilities on its equipment to Chinese intelligence services, which the equipment supplier fiercely denies
They got a victory on Tuesday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to exempt the UK’s 5G network from all equipment produced by Huawei due to a risk to national security.
The purchase of new Huawei equipment will be prohibited after 31 December 2020 and existing equipment must be removed from here 2027.
The US sanctions imposed in May on the Chinese giant, intended to cut Huawei's access to semiconductors made with American components, weighed in on the British decision. London is concerned about the group's use of aftermarket components that could pose new cybersecurity risks.
But Mr. Pompeo assured that the London decision was not due to American pressure.
“I am sure they did this because their security experts came to the same conclusions as ours,” he said.
“The information passing through these networks of Chinese origin will certainly end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party,” he added.
M. Pompeo accuses Huawei of committing human rights abuses by allowing the Chinese regime to monitor dissidents and set up large-scale surveillance technologies in Xinjiang, where according to human rights groups more than one million Uighurs and Muslims are imprisoned.
Donald Trump also accused Beijing of having hidden the first cases of COVID – 19 in Wuhan (south) the end of last year.