Alibaba hit back at the US’s “unfair” treatment of technology company Huawei after the country tried to limit the tech leader’s access to Western markets, in what increasingly looks like a US-China trade war.
The marketplace said last Friday that the manipulation of Huawei’s trading in international markets “definitely” serves the “political agenda” of the US and its allies. This suggests that sellers on Alibaba might face a ban on offering Huawei products to international consumers.
The Five Eyes Alliance, which consists of countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US have concluded that Huawei poses a security threat to their citizens. New Zealand and Australia have already banned the Chinese provider from setting up its 5G networks.
While Washington has already prohibited government officials from using Huawei products and is considering a further ban on its 5G launch, London and Ottawa are also in talks to forbid access to the technology.
But does the Huawei pose the threat?
The US points to Mr Ren’s military background and its growing authority which might represent a risk to national security. Put simply, Huawei has the capacity to conduct espionage or disrupt communications during any future dispute, particularly as more things, from autonomous vehicles to domestic appliances become connected to the internet.
The country also points especially to China’s National Intelligence Law passed in 2017 that says organisations must “support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work.”
As a result, Huawei said that it would only “transfer technology partnerships to countries where it’s welcome” and where it can “have a collaboration.” Citing customers’ no “choice in this decision,” the technology giant pointed to the US-China trade war in which it repeatedly insisted on having no connection. Last week, Liang Hua chairman of Huawei had reiterated that the technology is fully compliant with the laws in the markets where it operates and offered foreign officials to visit Huawei labs.
Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba, believes that it’s not the security concerns that matter to the US but in fact, the “anti-China” campaign the government’s leaders are stirring up.
“I think what the American government and together with the Five Eyes Alliance – what they’re trying to do with Huawei – is a bit unfair, there’s definitely a political agenda behind it. President Trump may have started it focusing on the trade deficit itself… but over the course of the last nine months it was blown into a bigger anti-China problem
-Joe Tsai, an executive vice chairman of Alibaba
The marketplace’s founder, Jack Ma took back his promise to create millions of job opportunities in the US after what he called “the stupidest thing in this world” destroyed his hopes, referring to the trade war.
