What we know so far about the case and its potential impact.
American officials are set to indict the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, on charges of violating U. S. sanctions on Iran.
Canadian authorities arrested Meng at the request of the U. S. prosecutors while she transited at Vancouver airport on Dec. 1.
The ordeal represents the latest flashpoint between China and the United States and comes amid a protracted trade war that has unsettled the global economy. Fears that her arrest would undermine talks between the United States and China to end the trade war have already roiled markets around the world.
The case against Meng touches on some of the most sensitive aspects of the relationship between the two countries.
Huawei, a cornerstone of China’s economic development plans, is already viewed with deep suspicion in the West. Any evidence that Huawei violated U. S. sanctions on Iran, either directly or tangentially, would further damage the company’s reputation in the United States.
Some analysts, meanwhile, believe China might retaliate with measures against Western business executives.
Here is what we know about the case.
Why does the West view Huawei as a threat?
Chinese President Xi Jinping is trying to turn his country from a destination for low-cost manufacturing to a high-tech powerhouse. It isn’t enough for Xi that Western technology companies use Chinese factories to make their goods. He wants Chinese firms to be designing the key components of the world’s digital infrastructure—and pocketing the profits that come with controlling the global technology market.
Huawei is key to that plan. The manufacturer of a wide variety of telecommunications products, Huawei is quickly becoming a rival to more established Western firms that make smartphones, routers, and cell phone towers—products that will dominate the world’s telecommunications infrastructure in the years to come.
But Western intelligence officials fear that Huawei’s infrastructure projects would give the Chinese government a way to spy on people around the globe.
“Cell phone networks are deliberately insecure in order to enable wiretapping,” said Nick Weaver, a staff researcher at the International Computer Science Institute. “Using Chinese-built infrastructure is just asking to say, ‘Let Chinese intelligence conduct wiretaps,’ since the infrastructure itself is designed to support such meddling.
