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Tag: Meng Wanzhou

  • Huawei wants to go all in on AI for the next decade | CNN Business

    Huawei wants to go all in on AI for the next decade | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Huawei has joined the list of companies that want to be all about artificial intelligence.

    For the first time in about 10 years, the Chinese tech and telecoms giant announced its new strategic direction on Wednesday, saying it would shift its focus to AI. Previously, the company had prioritized cloud computing and intellectual property, respectively, over two decade-long periods.

    Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s rotating chairwoman and chief financial officer, made the announcement in Shanghai during a company event.

    “As artificial intelligence gains steam, and its impact on industry continues to grow, Huawei’s All Intelligence strategy is designed to help all industries make the most of new strategic opportunities,” the company said in a statement.

    Meng said in a speech that Huawei was “committed to building a solid computing backbone for China — and another option for the world.”

    “Our end goal is to help meet the diverse AI computing needs of different industries,” she added, without providing details.

    Huawei’s decision follows a similar move by fellow Chinese tech giant Alibaba (BABA), announced earlier this month, to prioritize AI.

    Other companies, such as Japan’s SoftBank, have also long declared an intent to focus more on the fast-moving technology, and more businesses have jumped on the bandwagon this year due to excitement about platforms such as GPT-4.

    Meng returned to China in September 2021 after spending nearly three years under house arrest in Canada as part of an extradition battle with the United States. She and Huawei had been charged for alleged bank fraud and evasion of economic sanctions against Iran.

    The executive, who is also the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was able to leave after reaching an agreement with the US Department of Justice and ultimately having her charges dismissed.

    Meng began her role as the rotating chairperson of the company in April and is expected to stay in the position for six months.

    News of Huawei’s strategic update came the same day the company was mentioned in allegations lodged by China against the United States.

    In a statement posted Wednesday on Chinese social network WeChat, China’s Ministry of State Security accused Washington of infiltrating Huawei servers nearly 15 years ago.

    “With its powerful arsenal of cyberattacks, the United States intelligence services have carried out surveillance, theft of secrets and cyberattacks against many countries around the world, including China, in a variety of ways,” the ministry said.

    It alleged that the US National Security Agency (NSA), in particular, had “repeatedly conducted systematic and platform-based attacks on China in an attempt to steal China’s important data resources.”

    Huawei declined to comment on the allegations, while the NSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular US business hours.

    The claims are especially notable because US officials have long suspected the company of spying on the networks that its technology operates, using it as grounds to restrict trade with the company. Huawei has vehemently denied the claims, saying it operates independently of the Chinese government.

    In 2019, Huawei was added to the US “entity list,” which restricts exports to select organizations without a US government license. The following year, the US government expanded on those curbs by seeking to cut Huawei off from chip suppliers that use US technology.

    In recent weeks, Huawei has added to US-China tensions again after launching a new smartphone that represents an apparent technological breakthrough.

    Huawei launched the Mate 60 Pro, its latest flagship device, last month, prompting a US investigation. Analysts who have examined the phone have said it includes a 5G chip, suggesting Huawei may have found a way to overcome American export controls.

    — Mengchen Zhang contributed to this report.

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  • Blinken in Canada: Haiti military force ‘work in progress’

    Blinken in Canada: Haiti military force ‘work in progress’

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    VANCOUVER, Canada — The U.S. and Canada will work together to “cut the insecurity knot” that has allowed gangs to create a humanitarian crisis in Haiti, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday.

    But neither Blinken nor Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly committed their country to leading a military force to the Caribbean nation.

    “This is a work in progress and we are continuing to pursue it,” Blinken told a news conference in Ottawa during his first visit to Canada.

    Blinken said Canada and the U.S. agree that “more likely needs to be done” to support the Haitian national police to restore their grip on security.

    “We’ve been talking about what that might look like,” said Blinken. “We have both been talking to a variety of countries to gauge their interest in and willingness to participate in that.”

    Joly said Canada has sent an “assessment mission” to gather information to find the solutions that are supported by Hattians.

    Haiti’s interim government has operated in chaos since the July 2021 assassination of former president Jovenel Moise.

    Since September, armed gangs have been blockading fuel access, leading to a shortage of basic goods, clean water and medical services, all during a cholera outbreak.

    Canada and the U.S. have sent tanks, and the United Nations is considering a military intervention to restore order, which has been endorsed by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

    Later, prior to a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Blinken said Canada and the U.S. “are the two most integrated countries in the world” and have a history of working together to solve issues.

    “Not one of the problems that is having an effect on our own people or what we need to deal with around the world can be solved by one of us acting alone,” he said. “The more we find ways to cooperate, to work together, the more effective we’re going to be.”

    During the news conference Blinken and Joly reiterated their support for Ukraine, condemned Iran for its treatment of women and for supplying drones to Russia, and pledged to work together to increase Arctic security.

    Blinken called Russia’s use of Iranian drones to kill Ukrainian civilians and destroy infrastructure as “appalling.”

    “We keep working with our allies and partners to deter and counter Iran’s provision of these weapons,” he said.

    Joly said Canada said stands with the women and girls in Iran who are fighting against tyranny.

    “Women’s rights are human rights,” she said. “We have a moral obligation to support the brave women of Iran and hold those persecuting them accountable.”

    There have been protests across Iran sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”.

    Blinken also touched on Canadian and U.S. citizens being held by other countries.

    Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were held in China for over 1,000 days in what was seen as a retaliation for the arrest in Canada of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.

    U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner is facing a nine-year jail term in Russia after being convicted of smuggling and possessing cannabis oil.

    “We support Canada’s efforts to rally countries around the world in ending the unlawful practice of detaining innocent individuals and using them as political pawns,” said Blinken. “Both our countries have suffered from this.”

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  • The U.S. Tightens The Noose On Huawei—and China

    The U.S. Tightens The Noose On Huawei—and China

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    Monday marked a major escalation in the U.S.’s legal war on Huawei—and on the People’s Republic of China (PRC). On Monday, the DoJ unsealed an indictment against two PRC intelligence agents charged with obstructing the DoJ’s criminal case against a Chinese telecommunications company widely understood to be Huawei. The U.S. has launched legal attacks against Huawei for years. Monday’s indictment, however, marks the first time that PRC officials have been charged in connection with the U.S.’s legal proceedings against Huawei. The unraveling of Huawei’s ties to the PRC may bode poorly for the U.S.’s relationship with other Chinese-owned tech companies, including TikTok. It may also have tremendous implications for relations between the U.S. and the PRC in the courtroom and beyond.

    The U.S. and Huawei have been engaged in legal battles for the past five years. In August 2018, Congress enacted the 2019-2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which blocked the U.S. government from procuring, extending, or renewing contracts with Huawei for telecommunications equipment, systems or services; from doing business with entities that use Huawei equipment, systems or services; and from contracting for any equipment, system, or service for which Huawei products are a substantial component or critical technology. The PRC requires its corporations to allow the state access to their products for government use, upon request. Congress’s concern was that Huawei, given its close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and history of industrial espionage, could provide a back door in its technology that would allow the PRC to spy on the U.S. In 2020, Huawei lost a federal lawsuit challenging the ban, in which it denied allegations that its products would be used for spying and argued that the ban was unconstitutional.

    Meanwhile, the DoJ went after Huawei’s leadership. On December 6, 2018, Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou for bank fraud and violation of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Meng is Huawei’s CFO
    CFO
    , the deputy chair of its board, and the daughter of its founder. In response, Meng argued that her extradition would violate Canada’s constitution because the allegations against her were not crimes under Canadian law. Meng lost her motion, but struck a deferred prosecution agreement with the DoJ in exchange for her return to the PRC. Under the agreement, Meng did not admit guilt, but made statements regarding the company’s actions that, ostensibly, the DoJ could use in prosecutions against Huawei—which by then, were already underway.

    In Feburary 2020, the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn returned a superseding indictment against Huawei, its official and unofficial U.S. subsidiaries, and Sabrina Meng, updating earlier charges. The indictment included 16 charges involving Huawei’s alleged practice of fraudulently and deceptively misappropriating technology from U.S. companies, and allegations of Huawei’s attempts to conceal its involvement in business in countries subject to U.S., E.U., or U.N. sanctions. Monday’s indictments assert that Chinese intelligence officials attempted to obstruct its prosecution of Huawei, laundering money in the process. According to Monday’s indictment, Guochun He and Zen Wang, two PRC intelligence officers paid at least $61,000 in Bitcoin
    BTC
     bribes to a double-agent supervised by the FBI in order to obtain what they believed to be confidential information about witnesses, trial evidence, and potential new charges to be brought against Huawei. He and Wang were not arrested and are believed to be in the PRC.

    By alleging that Chinese officials are directly involved in an attempt to obstruct Huawei’s prosecution, the DoJ has, for the first time, drawn a direct link between Huawei’s allegedly illegal activities and the Chinese state. DoJ officials made this explicit in their remarks accompanying the announcement of the indictments, and in their timing. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Huawei-related indictment simultaneously with two others involving “Alleged Participation in Malign Schemes in the United States on Behalf of the Government of the People’s Republic of China.” The other cases involved a conspiracy to forcibly repatriate PRC nationals, known as Operation Fox Hunt, and an effort to target individuals in the U.S. to act as PRC agents. Garland painted the three cases as part of a broad PRC effort to “interfere with the rights and freedoms of individuals in the United States and to undermine our judicial system that protects these rights.” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s pointed remarks cited “ongoing efforts to steal sensitive U.S. technology.” In what may have been a warning, she asserted, “The case exposes the interconnection between PRC intelligence officers and Chinese companies, and it demonstrates, once again, why such companies—especially in the telecommunications industry—should not be trusted to securely handle our sensitive personal data and communications.”

    The DoJ’s indictments, and allegations of the PRC’s intent to undermine democracy, will pressure lawmakers to restrict technology from exploitation by the PRC. The Biden administration has launched efforts to restrict the PRC from gaining access to sensitive technologies, particularly those with military applications. Earlier this month, the administration announced new limits on the sale of semiconductor technology to the PRC. The FCC is expected to vote soon on whether it will ban new Huawei products from being sold in the U.S. The indictments also come as the U.S. is negotiating a much-awaited deal with TikTok to ensure that it is not used as a spying tool by the PRC and to protect Americans’ data accordingly. If the deal fails, TikTok’s operations within the U.S. may be at risk—along with the Democratic Party’s relationship with many young voters who use the app. TikTok will now be on the defensive to prove it can safeguard Americans’ data from the long arm of the Chinese state—which apparently extends to spies on U.S. soil.

    When Meng Wanzhou received a deferred prosecution agreement and was sent home to the PRC, many observers argued that she received a slap on the wrist. But experienced attorneys knew that the DoJ was using an old prosecutor’s trick: use the little fish to catch the big ones. As lawfare between the U.S. and Huawei continues, it seems that the bigger fish may be Huawei, the PRC’s tech industry—or even the PRC itself.

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    Jill Goldenziel, Contributor

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