US threatens sanctions against Huawei employees and business partners

The United States has cleared the way for sanctions on employees of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, expanding its campaign against Beijing.

The US secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington would restrict US visas for employees of Huawei and other Chinese firms if they were involved in human rights abuses.

“Telecommunications companies around the world should consider themselves on notice: if they are doing business with Huawei, they are doing business with human rights abusers,” Pompeo said.

Washington has accused Huawei of working at the behest of Beijing and says that global security and personal data will be at risk if the company dominates development of the world’s fifth-generation internet.

On Tuesday, Britain announced it was reversing its decision to let Huawei participate in its 5G network, something the Chinese ambassador to London described as “disappointing and wrong”.

Pompeo said that Huawei was already responsible for rights abuses by letting China spy on dissidents and abetting Beijing’s sweeping surveillance in the western region of Xinjiang, where rights groups say more than one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims are incarcerated.

Tensions between world’s two largest economies have grown on a range of fronts in recent weeks, including over coronavirus, trade, and Beijing’s clampdown in Hong Kong, which prompted President Donald Trump on Tuesday to end the city’s special US trading privileges. Trump also signed a bill approved by the US Congress to penalise banks doing business with Chinese officials who implement the new security law.

China described the moves as “gross interference” in its internal affairs and vowed to retaliate.

Offering affordable internet in the developing world and moving rapidly on 5G, Huawei has so far largely weathered US prohibitions and pressure – and reported double-digit revenue growth for the first half of the year.

The European Union has resisted blanket restrictions on Huawei.

Robert O’Brien, the US national security adviser, brought up Huawei in talks with European counterparts in Paris, warning that the company could both spy on government secrets and sweep up vast amounts of personal data.

“Europe is awakening to the threat of China,” O’Brien told reporters.

“Imagine how a country like China could interfere with elections if they knew everything about every single person on earth,” he said.

Canada in 2018 acted on a US request and arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who faces extradition on charges of violating US sanctions on Iran.

Huawei rejects the US campaign and has called on Washington to show more evidence to prove the risks purportedly posed by the company.

In other recent moves, Pompeo restricted visas for Chinese officials over human rights in Xinjiang and rejected Beijing’s sweeping claims in the dispute-rife South China Sea.

Trump has also loudly blamed China for Covid-19, news of which was suppressed when cases first emerged in Wuhan late last year.

Critics at home and abroad accuse Trump of seeking to divert attention in an election year from his response to the crisis in the United States, which has suffered the highest death toll of any country.