Why have US prosecutors labelled China’s Huawei a legal enterprise? | Explainer News
Chinese expertise big Huawei is going through a landmark legal trial within the United States amid Washington’s long-running tech rivalry with Beijing.
The trial started in federal court docket in Brooklyn, New York, on September 9, with US prosecutors portraying Huawei as a legal enterprise that spent twenty years stealing expertise from US firms, deceiving banks and circumventing sanctions on Iran.
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Huawei has pleaded not responsible and says the US authorities is making an attempt to show strange trade disputes and the actions of particular person workers into proof of a company-wide conspiracy.
The trial is anticipated to final about three months and overlaps with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s September 23-25 go to to Washington, the place commerce, synthetic intelligence, tariffs and entry to essential applied sciences are prone to be on the agenda.
Here is what it is advisable know:
What are the allegations in opposition to Huawei?
US prosecutors have accused the corporate of racketeering, cash laundering, financial institution and wire fraud, sanctions violations, obstruction and conspiring to steal commerce secrets and techniques from 5 US expertise firms.
Prosecutors say the alleged wrongdoing stretched from about 1999 to 2020.
“Theft, lies, cover-up,” Justice Department lawyer Taylor Stout stated in his opening remarks.
Prosecutors allege Huawei stole expertise, together with internet-router supply code from Cisco and a robotic arm utilized by T-Mobile to check telephones.
They additionally accuse Huawei of concealing the character of its operations in Iran to maneuver US {dollars} by the monetary system regardless of US sanctions.
The authorities additionally alleges that Huawei provided tools that would assist Iranian authorities monitor protesters throughout demonstrations in 2009.
How has Huawei responded?
Huawei, a serious producer of telecommunications tools, denies any wrongdoing.
The tech big’s lawyer Brian Heberlig informed jurors the case was about “competitors, not conspiracy. Innovation, not theft. Ordinary trade dealings, not legal conduct.”
Heberlig accused prosecutors of “cherry-picking remoted occasions” to assemble a conspiracy that didn’t exist. Huawei’s defence says some incidents concerned particular person workers whose actions had been handled internally, slightly than reflecting firm coverage.
He informed jurors that prosecutors will describe routine actions by world tech firms “however will twist these strange actions to attempt to make them look legal”.
Huawei individually described the broader prosecution as an try and undermine its competitiveness, saying the US authorities’s “overarching narrative is demonstrably false” and that it had “the utmost respect for mental property”.
The case originated throughout Donald Trump’s first presidency. His administration positioned Huawei on a US commerce blacklist in 2019 and pushed allies to exclude the corporate from 5G networks, arguing its tools may current nationwide safety and espionage dangers.
Huawei has repeatedly denied that its expertise is used for spying.
What has China’s response been?
Beijing has strongly criticised the prosecution, which has come weeks forward of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s go to to the US.
On Thursday, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson stated “the Chinese authorities firmly opposes the US facet’s suppression and containment of Chinese enterprises”, when requested in regards to the case and the American prosecutor’s “legal enterprise” description.
China “firmly helps Chinese enterprises in safeguarding their reputable rights and pursuits”, the spokesperson stated at an everyday information convention.
What is Huawei, and has the tech big confronted investigations earlier than?
Huawei is likely one of the world’s largest telecommunications tools producers. It additionally produces smartphones and has develop into more and more vital to China’s semiconductor and AI industries.
Its actions have drawn scrutiny properly past the present US trial.
Belgian prosecutors launched an investigation in 2025 into suspected bribery involving the European Parliament allegedly for Huawei’s profit.
The European Parliament subsequently suspended entry for Huawei lobbyists. Huawei stated it had “zero-tolerance” for corruption and would cooperate with authorities.
Huawei chief monetary officer Meng Wanzhou made worldwide headlines in 2018 when she was arrested on a US warrant after touchdown in Vancouver, straining each US-China and China-Canada relations.
The warrant was filed after a sealed indictment accused her and the corporate of financial institution fraud for deceptive HSBC and different banks about Huawei’s trade in Iran.
She returned to China in 2021 beneath a deferred prosecution settlement, and the fees in opposition to her had been later dismissed.
Admissions Meng made as a part of that settlement can, nevertheless, be offered as proof in Huawei’s present trial after a US choose ruled them admissible in June.
They are legally separate however kind a part of a a lot wider financial and technological competitors between Washington and Beijing.
Huawei turned one of the outstanding targets of US restrictions throughout Trump’s first time period.
Since then, the rivalry has expanded from telecommunications and 5G into semiconductors and AI, with Washington restricting China’s access to superior US chips and chipmaking expertise.
Last week, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, warned {that a} “Chinese lead in AI would pose grave hazard for the US and the globe” and urged Washington to keep up restrictions on cutting-edge AI tech. He additionally known as for motion in opposition to alleged “distillation” of US fashions by Chinese AI laboratories.
China’s Foreign Ministry on September 14 accused the US tech big of “fearmongering”.
“Fomenting varied threats, participating in confrontation and malicious competitors will solely disrupt the method of world governance of synthetic intelligence and isn’t within the pursuits of any celebration,” stated ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun.
The state-backed Global Times newspaper went additional, describing Amodei’s proposal as a “Cold War playbook” whose actual function was to curb Chinese AI improvement and protect US technological dominance.
China and the US had been engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff conflict initially of Trump’s presidency in 2025. The commerce conflict resulted in a truce, however the globe’s two largest economies have did not strike a commerce deal.
Beijing, in the meantime, has used its dominance of essential minerals as leverage and accelerated efforts to construct home alternate options to American expertise.
Currently, China controls many of the globe’s uncommon earth minerals, together with metals which can be essential for the manufacture of many technological gadgets, from smartphones to fighter jets. The globe’s second-largest marketplace has 60 % of those minerals and processes 90 % of the globe’s provide.
In October, Beijing introduced plans to require overseas firms to acquire permission to export Chinese uncommon earth tools or materials.
This meant firms wherever within the globe would want a licence to export uncommon earth magnets and sure semiconductor supplies that comprise even hint quantities of minerals sourced from China or produced utilizing Chinese expertise.
China’s Ministry of Commerce stated its export controls on rare earths, which Trump had labelled “shocking” and “very hostile”, had been launched in response to a sequence of US measures.
