Meng has been held in custody in Canada for more than a month, pending extradition to the United States, which has deepened the diplomatic crisis between China and the US.
John Ross, a senior fellow at Chongyang Institute, Renmin University of China, and an award-winning resident columnist with several Chinese media organizations, joined Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear Tuesday to discuss the US charges against the Chinese company.
According to acting US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, the Justice Department has unsealed two indictments — one in New York and one in Washington state — with a total of 23 charges against Huawei, its subsidiaries and Meng for conspiring to steal trade secrets and violating sanctions.
In the New York indictment, prosecutors claimed that Huawei used its affiliate, Skycom Tech Co. Ltd., to bypass sanctions placed against Iran. The indictment charges Huawei, Huawei Device USA Inc., Skycom and Meng with bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud; wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud; violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and conspiracy to violate the IEEPA; and conspiracy to commit money laundering, Sputnik previously reported.
"The whole thing is one of the most grotesque farces that has ever been," Ross told hosts John Kiriakou and Brian Becker.
"First of all, US and European banks have been fined billions of dollars for libel and not one of their CEOs or their CFOs have been arrested. Therefore, to arrest the CFO of Huawei is purely a political act."
"Secondly, what it really shows is that the American companies cannot compete with Huawei. The charge that Huawei has been stealing technology from the US is absolutely ludicrous. It is well known in the telecommunications industry that in the introduction of 5G, Huawei has a technological lead and is some time in advance compared to the American and European companies," Ross added.
According to prosecutors, the offenses by Huawei took place from 2012 to 2014, and in July 2013, the company sent out an internal email that "was offering bonuses to employees who succeeded in stealing confidential information from other companies.
"The situation is that the American companies have been defeated in open competition with Huawei, and they are now inventing political charges to try to conceal this fact and to try to alter this situation," Ross told Sputnik.
"And the people who are going to pay the price for this is all telecommunications users in Europe and the United States, who are going to have to pay a higher price for their telecommunications… you are going to have less efficient European and Americans companies that are technologically behind Huawei on the development of 5G, and we are going to have to pay their prices instead of Huawei's," Ross added, also noting that the "biggest people who crack telecommunications systems in the world, are, by far, the US National Security Agency (NSA)."
