What’s so scary about Huawei?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2019
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The tech giant has had a meteoric rise over the last ten years. It has overtaken Apple in the global smartphone market, and its equipment is in telecommunications systems in 170 countries worldwide. But Huawei now finds itself at the centre of a global scandal.
Its chief financial officer - the daughter of the company’s founder - is under house arrest in Canada, accused of selling telecom equipment to Iran in contravention of US sanctions.
A week later, a US court charged the whole company with bank fraud, obstruction of justice and theft of technology from rival T-Mobile.
The company has been banned in New Zealand and Australia, and there are moves in the US to stop government employees from buying their products.
Critics say if it wins the contracts for the new 5G network being created globally, it could give the Chinese government control over everything from smart phones, to cars, to pacemakers in other countries.
So why has the success story soured? This week, we ask: what’s so scary about Huawei?
Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Jordan Dunbar
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me, Kavita Puri. |
| 0:06.0 | Each week, one question, four expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:15.0 | It's winter and a well-dressed Chinese woman is changing flights in Canada. She's flown in from Hong Kong and is on her way to Mexico. |
| 0:27.0 | Law enforcement officials descend and she's arrested and faces extradition to the United States. |
| 0:39.0 | The charges, committing fraud, money laundering, even breaking sanctions against Iran. |
| 0:45.6 | Offenses which carry a sentence of up to 30 years. |
| 0:50.2 | The accused is the chief financial officer of the Chinese Telecom's company, Huawei. |
| 0:59.0 | Her name, Meng Wangzu, the daughter of its billionaire founder. |
| 1:07.0 | She says no laws have been violated. |
| 1:14.0 | Call to ban Huawei phones from US government offices. |
| 1:18.0 | Accusations of spying across the world, fears of global industrial espionage |
| 1:25.0 | what's going on? |
| 1:29.0 | Why is Huawei the international corporate boie man. This week we try to unravel what's happening and ask, |
| 1:38.0 | what's so scary about Huawei. |
| 1:45.0 | Part 1, |
| 1:49.0 | Crying Jule. Woe in Chinese actually means roughly the success of the Chinese people. |
| 2:08.0 | Our first witness is Yuan Yang, the Beijing correspondent for the Financial Times. So it is a very patriotic name, as was common with many companies founded in China the last few decades. |
| 2:15.4 | She tells me how the founder of Huawei Renzan Zang Bay had a humble start in life growing up |
| 2:21.1 | in rural China. And he joined the People's Liberation Army, the Chinese military, as an engineer, |
| 2:28.0 | which meant that he had the ability to do research and access textbooks and all sorts of things that were otherwise |
| 2:34.9 | very difficult to do in China during the Cultural Revolution. Then after he left |
| 2:39.0 | the military he set up Huawei with $3,000. |
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