Feds Probing Huawei Amid Fears Products Sending Sensitive Info From US Bases, Silos to PRC: Report

Huawei fell victim to President Donald Trump’s trade and technology wars with Beijing in 2019 amid uncorroborated claims that the People’s Republic was using the private company to spy on Americans. President Joe Biden tightened the restrictions in late 2021 to make sure that Huawei products could not be used in US telecommunications networks.

The Biden administration is reportedly running an investigation to determine whether Huawei products have the capability to capture sensitive data from US military installations and missile silos and beam it back to the People’s Republic.

Sources said to be familiar with the matter told Reuters Thursday that Washington fears Huawei could be obtaining classified information on everything from planned drills to data on the readiness status of bases and equipment and sending it to China for analysis.

The investigation is said to have been opened by the Department of Commerce in 2021, shortly after Biden became president.

The agency was empowered with the authority to investigate such matters in May 2019 on the basis of a Trump-era executive order, and it subpoenaed Huawei in April 2021 to probe whether its products share cell info such as text messages and location data with foreign entities.

Jeff Bezos-owned and US security state-linked newspaper The Washington Post reported in December on what it said was a trove of classified Huawei PowerPoint presentations purportedly linking the Chinese tech giant to PRC surveillance programs, including technology providing for voice identification, the monitoring of persons of interest, and even assistance to companies to track shoppers using facial recognition software.

Huawei dismissed the Post’s claims at the time, saying that the company only “provides cloud platform services that comply with common industry standards.”

The company did not immediately comment on Thursday’s Reuters report.

Unlike ZTE, another Chinese company impacted by US restrictions, Huawei has boasted of its status as a wholly private, independent company with “no government or any third party hold[ing] shares…intervene[ing] in our operations, or influenc[ing] our decision-making.” Company officials have repeatedly expressed their readiness to sign “no-spy” and “no-backdoor” agreements to assuage the privacy concerns of both customers and governments.

It’s not clear what would happen if the Department of Commerce probe found evidence of collaboration between Huawei and the Chinese government, or other foreign actors.

Huawei’s 5G technology has already been banned in the US and among many of its allies, with its other products banned from use by the US government and contractors via the Defense Authorization Act of 2018. Some Huawei consumer products, like smartphones and laptops, can still be found for sale by US electronics retailers, but are harder to find than in other markets.

The restrictions reportedly haven’t stopped the Chinese tech giant from enjoying success in technological breakthroughs, with Bloomberg reporting Thursday that Huawei is “quietly staffing up” its efforts to create in-house chipmaking in the face of Western restrictions on technology transfer.

The Trump administration launched the US crusade against Huawei in mid-2018 amid allegations that the company had ties to the Chinese government. In late 2018, Washington’s Canadian allies arrested Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou over claims she violated US sanctions by concealing dealings with Iran. In September 2021, Meng was released from custody and sent back to China after agreeing to a deferred prosecution agreement.