Huawei has helped North Korea to build a wireless network. Not that it’s wrong for Huawei to be involved but learning about this poses a number of questions. The current US trade ban has caused the top Chinese OEM’s numbers to decline. Many American firms have announced they would be discontinuing business with Huawei. The latter has been assuring the Android community everything is still safe but many people aren’t sure about what’s going to happen. The US government has reasons to distrust Huawei and with the latest revelation, we have a feeling more wounds will be opened.
An anonymous source of The Post shared documents that prove Huawei worked with the North Korean government. With its partnership with Panda International Information Technology Co., Huawei’s work in North Korea spanned some eight years. The project concerns the telecom operations in the country.
Now if this is true, then there is another question of Huawei violating US export controls. Huawei is not supposed to supply equipment to North Korea for several reasons. There have been related investigations but nothing as public as now. The US Commerce Department hasn’t made any formal statement yet regarding the issue or investigation.
Huawei has always been in hot water for its ties with countries the US hate. Remember how it was charged with violations and bank fraud for dealing with Iran. It may happen again soon depending on the results of the investigation.
Huawe’s spokesman Joe Kelly didn’t answer questions when asked. He declined to make a comment after a statement by the company saying that it “has no business presence” in North Korea has been made public. The same statement says, “Huawei is fully committed to comply with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries and regions where we operate, including all export control and sanction laws and regulations” of the United Nations, United States and European Union.”
A Huawei-North Korea relation may further aggravate the Huawei-United States’ problem. Political and diplomatic discussions will definitely come up. A State Department official can be quoted saying, “Working with regimes like North Korea, who deprive individuals on a regular basis of their basic human rights, raises concern.” “All of this fits into a general concern we have about corporate responsibility and a company like Huawei that is not trustworthy because of its company culture and numerous incidents indicating a willingness to evade or outright violate laws,” the official added.
