Source link On the heels of a highly contested US election, President-elect Joe Biden appears to be making moves to restrict exports to Chinese technology company Huawei, according to reports from newswire services and Chinese media outlets.
The proposed action would come amid a trade battle between the two countries, which has heated up in recent years as the Trump administration has imposed increasingly harsh punitive measures on Huawei, including restrictions on American companies selling materials and components to the Chinese tech giant.
China, however, is not taking the threat of further restrictions quietly and has reacted with indignation to the Biden administration’s decision. In a statement responding to the reports, Huawei’s global CEO, Guo Ping, criticized the presidential candidate’s move as “ostracizing” and “unfair.”
The move to enact export controls on Huawei is part of a larger pattern of aggressive US- China trade policies pursued by President Trump. The restrictions are widely seen as retaliatory in nature, in response to the Chinese government’s alleged theft of valuable technology and intellectual property.
The US government has long accused Huawei of being a tool for the Chinese government, with ties to China’s popular spy apparatus. The company has also been found to have violated US sanctions against Iran and has allegedly sold equipment to North Korea in defiance of UN sanctions.
Given the existing trade tensions between the US and China, it is unclear what the Biden administration’s actual steps towards imposing export restrictions on Huawei will be. However, should the move to restrict exports to the Chinese tech giant move forward, it will have the potential to further escalate the ongoing “tech war” between the two countries.
