By Chathushka Perera
(CWBN)_ An inquiry conducted by the House of Commons – Defence Committee (UK) concluded that the Communist Party of China has been colluding with the Huawei Technologies Co., a multinational telecommunications and electronics manufacturer based in Shenzhen, China. The inquiry reported the claims from cyber-security and finance irregularity experts, academics, and various other parties in drawing its conclusions.
It claims that 75 billion USD has been granted by the Chinese Government to enable Huawei to sell its products at a considerably lower market price. However, the company denied the committee’s allegations. Nonetheless its executives failed to appear before the committee hearings in this regard, yet had testified previously (July) in a separate inquiry.
Additionally, the report indicates “covert and overt threats” from Beijing against UK’s nuclear development by preventing Chinese investments in order to maintain Huawei within UK’s 5G network. The committee maintained that the Government ought to reassess Chinese involvement in the local nuclear sector.
Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, former Deputy Regimental Chief of the People’s Army, as phone switch (SPC) manufacturer. The company later expanded into communications networks development, smart device manufacturing and providing cloud services and IT. It recently reported an income of over 104 billion USD in the first six months of 2020. The company is globally ranked in 4th place with valued at 80.64 billion USD, standing right below brands such as Samsung, Apple and Google Pixel. Nonetheless Huawei overtook Apple as a global smartphone manufacturer in 2019.
Also it must be noted that Huawei is currently finding itself in the middle of the escalating US-China Trade War, due to diplomatic distrust. Recent involvements and actions taken by the Communist Part in Beijing, particularly that in the South China Sea, the Indo-China border and the use of Belt and Road investment policies to impose its authority and influence over various parts of the world. Furthermore, the fact that Covid-19 originated in Wuhan, China has not gone unnoticed by the world causing a recess in relationships with China and is bound to fan the flames against the tech giant.
