Why would anyone trust the founder Ren Zhengfei when he was a engineer in China’s People’s Liberation Army? Why has the media not talked about China spying and taking over so much land and technology in the United States?
Polish authorities detained an employee of Chinese tech giant Huawei and charged him with spying on behalf of China, amid growing global concerns that the company is tied to Chinese intelligence agencies, Polish authorities said Friday.
Huawei’s local sales director in Poland was arrested along with a Polish citizen who worked for the Chinese company’s main local business partner and who once was a senior manager in a Polish intelligence agency. The move reflects long-standing suspicions by Washington and its allies that Huawei could be used as an arm of Chinese intelligence services, and it comes amid mounting pressure on the company.
U.S. officials have long warned that the technology sold by Huawei — which varies from the infrastructure that powers cellular networks to computers and phones — might be mobilized by the Chinese government to spy on people across the world. The company has defended itself in part by pointing to the absence of formal, public evidence of such activities.
Huawei has sought to help develop a new generation of high-speed European cellular networks, but Western intelligence agencies have slowed its expansion efforts. Some countries have banned public purchases of Huawei technology, and many Western intelligence agencies have offered blunt assessments that the company was acting as an arm of China’s spy apparatus.
Last month, Germany’s Deutsche Telekom said it would reevaluate its use of Huawei technology after unveiling its first 5G high-speed network based on equipment from the Chinese manufacturer. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis ordered his office to stop using Huawei phones. And a top European Union official for digital issues, European Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip, said that “we have to be worried” about Huawei.
Poland has been more open than other countries to partnering with Huawei, and last year its government said it would collaborate with the company in developing a next-generation high-speed 5G cellular network for the country.
The arrests come a month after Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was detained in Canada at the U.S. government’s request on charges related to violating sanctions against Iran. Meng is the daughter of the company’s founder, and her detention has set off a diplomatic battle, as well as fierce condemnations from the Chinese government.
Huawei was founded in southern China in the late 1980s by a former military officer, Ren Zhengfei, and rode two decades of unprecedented economic growth to become one of the country’s largest privately held companies.
Today, it is the largest supplier of the network equipment used by phone and Internet, and it competes with Apple in terms of cellphone sales. Its reach is vast: The company has 170,000 employees in 170 countries.
At home, Huawei is seen as a symbol of China’s economic transformation, of how far the country has come — and of its soaring ambitions to become a hub for tech manufacturing and innovation. But it is not a household name in the United States, largely because U.S. lawmakers have worked to limit its U.S. business and warned consumers against its phones.
The company strongly denies any wrongdoing, as does the Chinese government.
Poland’s counterintelligence agency searched Huawei’s Polish offices Tuesday, seizing documents and electronics. The agency also searched the house of the company’s employee, a Chinese national, said Stanislaw Zaryn, a spokesman for the Polish special services coordinator.
The Polish citizen who was detained alongside the Huawei employee once worked for a Polish intelligence agency and now works for Orange, a European cellular carrier, Poland’s state broadcaster reported.
He was “a pretty high manager in many public institutions,” Zaryn said, declining to provide further details.
Zaryn said he was unsure about the role other countries might have played in helping Poland assemble evidence against the two men. Senior Polish officials told the state broadcaster they had planned the arrests for months.
Both men have denied the charges and have refused to cooperate with investigators, Zaryn said. The charges of espionage carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison. They will be in custody for three months as investigators continue to build their case.
“Huawei is aware of the situation, and we are looking into it,” the company said in a statement. “Huawei complies with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries where it operates, and we require every employee to abide by the laws and regulations in the countries where they are based.”
The Chinese suspect, identified only as Weijing W. by Polish authorities, studied Polish at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, then worked at the Chinese Consulate in Gdansk, in 2006. He has worked in Poland for Huawei since 2011, according to Polish state television.
While working for Poland’s domestic counterintelligence agency, the Polish suspect, identified as Piotr D., had access to key information about a secure government communications network used by high-level Polish officials, the broadcaster said.
Why doesn’t the Media and the criminal elected officials ever talk about China being America’s enemy?
BOEING CANCELS CONTROVERSIAL SATELLITE ORDER FUNDED BY CHINA
Two Americans wanted to create a satellite in an effort to increase internet access in Africa, but their project quickly turned over into the hands of the Chinese government.
Boeing, who was hired to build the satellite and knew of the Chinese government’s involvement in the project, reportedly announced Thursday it was cancelling the order.
Boeing cited default for nonpayment, calling it a business decision.
Boeing decided to cancel an order for a satellite that uses sensitive technology used by the U.S. military and was reportedly being funded by a state-owned Chinese financial firm.
A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed Tuesday the troubling web of financial transactions that skirted around U.S. export laws, which would ban Boeing from selling satellites to China, and resulted in the Chinese government funneling nearly $200 million to the project and obtaining a large stake of the company responsible for the satellite.
Boeing told WSJ Thursday it cancelled the project, which was near completion at a Boeing facility in Los Angeles, citing default for nonpayment. A source familiar with the project said the cancellation was a business decision, and the company may attempt to resell the satellite. (RELATED: US Satellite May Now Be Controlled By China)
Emil Youssefzadeh and Umar Javed, two Americans who founded the startup Global IP in 2008 with the goal of improving internet accessibility in Africa, were Boeing’s original customers of the satellite. A few foreign financial transactions made in an attempt to sidestep U.S. export laws almost potentially resulted in the Chinese government repurposing the satellite’s sensitive technology for its own use.
Youssefzadeh and Javed were contacted in 2015 by executives at China Orient Asset Management Co., a financial firm owned by China’s Ministry of Finance, expressing interest in the satellite.
Javed was in Beijing days later meeting with the president of the company and Geng Zhiyuan, a man whose father was a leader in China’s military in 1979 and employed Xi Jinping as his personal secretary. Xi is now the president of Communist China.
Due to certain U.S. laws involving satellite technology, China Orient isn’t allowed to hold a large stake in the company or satellite, so Global IP planned to receive China Orient’s money through a separate shell company, according to WSJ.
A subsidiary of China Orient, Dong Yin Development, lent $175 million to Bronzelink, the company set up in the British Virgin Islands. Bronzelink then bought 75 percent of Global IP.
Global IP used the investment to pay Boeing to build the satellite.
After relations with China Orient soured, Youssefzadeh and Javed resigned in 2017 from Global IP and sued Dong Yin the following year, alleging the subsidiary was illegally trying to usurp the satellite project.
China’s involvement in the project has worried U.S. officials, who warn that the country often engages in illicit activities in an attempt to gain access to highly sought after technologies.
“It’s a multi-pronged, multi-faceted kind of attack,” Eric Hirschhorn, who served as an undersecretary at the Commerce Department during the Obama administration, told WSJ. “They’ve [China] got their hand in every pocket they can find, their nose in every crack, their eye in every keyhole.”
Right before Global IP was to sign its contract with Boeing in August 2016, Youssefzadeh and Javed received unexpected visitors in Los Angeles.
Multiple new Global IP board members, led by a Chinese lawyer who represents China Orient, demanded access to the Boeing contract and requested to see Boeing’s satellite designs, WSJ reported.
Youssefzadeh and Javed told the crew that they were already given authorization from the board to move forward with production and were confused why this team was sent to obtain more information.
The two Americans refused the multiple requests to look over the contract, which they knew contained hundreds of detailed pages on how Boeing’s technology and programs work. China is blocked from seeing this type of information under export control laws.
Executives at Bronzelink, which owned 75 percent of Global IP at the time of the visit, eventually began to make similar requests, Youssefzadeh and Javed said.
Boeing’s cancellation comes as China was moving to take tighter control of the satellite project, and in doing so obtain access to the sensitive and advanced technology.
Why Are We Allowing The Chinese To Build Smartphone That The Military Is Using?
The three military exchange services pulled all smartphones made by Chinese electronics manufacturers Huawei and ZTE from stores around the world and banned their sale because of the security risks the devices pose, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
The Defense Department’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness issued a ban of “all Huawei and ZTE cellphones, personal mobile internet modems and related products from locations worldwide,” DOD spokesman Maj. Dave Eastburn said an email to Stars and Stripes.
“Given the security concerns associated with these devices, as expressed by senior U.S. intelligence officials, it was not prudent for the Department’s exchange services to continue selling these products to our personnel,” Eastburn said. He added that DOD is “evaluating the situation” to see if any additional security measures are needed, including an outright ban on use of the phones by servicemembers.
Stars and Stripes first reported last week that an Army and Air Force Exchange Service concession at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, had been selling the mobile electronic devices on base. The products were also found for sale at U.S. bases in other overseas locations.
In February, the director of national intelligence, along with the heads of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency all testified before a Senate committee that Americans should not use Huawei or ZTE products because of security concerns.
Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, is a private company started by a former People’s Liberation Army officer. U.S. intelligence officials say the company has very close ties to China’s government.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that Huawei products give the Chinese government the ability to gather or alter sensitive corporate and military information undetected.
The concern about Huawei first focused on routers, switches and other high-bandwidth commercial products; it later expanded to consumer mobile phones. They are already banned for official government use in most cases.
Huawei has been the target of numerous U.S. regulations and laws meant to address national security concerns, such as a 2013 law that required federal law enforcement agencies to sign off on certain purchases of its products by government agencies.
Huawei spokesmen have repeatedly denied claims the company’s devices pose any security risks. Huawei phones are used commonly throughout Europe, and the company is in the middle of a worldwide promotional campaign for its latest phone series, the P20, released last month.
Still, the Chinese devices “may pose an unacceptable risk to (the) department’s personnel, information and mission,” Eastburn said.
New rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission would bar U.S. telecommunications companies that receive FCC subsidies from buying products from foreign companies with security concerns. Companies have yet to be named, but Huawei and ZTE are both expected to make the list of banned manufacturers. A bill introduced in January by Rep. Michael Conway, a Republican from Texas, would make it illegal for U.S. government contractors to use any Huawei equipment.
Huawei also makes personal mobile Internet modems, called “pucks,” which in recent years have been sold to U.S. troops at a coalition base near Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. Some soldiers may have purchased similar devices made by ZTE.
ZTE was sanctioned by the U.S. government for violating trade embargoes by sending U.S.-made components to Iran inside its devices. Huawei is currently the subject of a similar investigation by the Justice Department.
Eastburn said the Pentagon deferred to command officials for additional guidance on operational security matters, but he said troops should watch out for news of potentially compromised electronics.
“Servicemembers should be mindful of the media coverage about the security risks posed by the use of these devices, regardless of where they were purchased,” he said.
The private equity firm of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden inked a billion-dollar deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China just 10 days after the father and son flew to China in 2013.
The Biden bombshell is one of many revealed in a new investigative book Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends by Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer. Schweizer’s last book, Clinton Cash, sparked an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
According to an exclusive New York Post excerpt from the book, the Biden billion-dollar China deal occurred as follows. In 2013, Hunter Biden and the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, Chris Heinz, were managing partners in the private equity firm Rosemont Seneca Partners. In December of that year, Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew aboard Air Force Two to China. Ten days after the trip, a subsidiary of the Bank of China named Bohai Capital signed an exclusive deal with Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz’s Rosemont to form a $1 billion joint-investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST. The deal was later increased to $1.5 billion.
“The Chinese government was literally funding a business that they co-owned along with the sons of two of America’s most powerful decision makers,” writes Schweizer in Secret Empires.
Neither Joe Biden or John Kerry have yet to comment on how the son of a sitting vice president and the stepson of a Secretary of State were permitted to bag a billion-dollar deal with the Communist Chinese government—nor whether they had any knowledge or involvement in the deal.
Secret Empires is slated to hit bookstores nationwide on Tuesday, March 20.
US President Donald Trump (2nd R) speaks to China’s President Xi Jinping (L), as US First Lady Melania Trump (2nd L) and Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan (R) look on, the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017.
Chinese security officers attempted to stop the American military aide carrying the nuclear football from following President Trump into the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in November.
Axios reported Sunday the decision set off a chain of events that led chief of staff John Kelly to intervene and get in a physical altercation with a Chinese security officer.
According to the report, Chinese officials blocked the military aide carrying the nuclear football from following Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping into the Great Hall. The aide is supposed to be near Trump at all times.
When made aware of the situation, Kelly intervened and told the aide to keep walking and entering the hall. One Chinese official grabbed Kelly and Kelly shoved the man’s hand back. A Secret Service agent then grabbed the Chinese official and tackled him to the ground.
The report indicates Trump’s team properly informed the Chinese about security procedures before the trip. The nuclear football, which contains the codes the president must give to order a nuclear strike, was never in Chinese possession.
The Chinese apologized to the Americans after the incident.
Exporting companies are using Chinese ships, planes, and trucks to transport dead Americans across the world for research purposes, according to a Thursday report from Reuters.
A Hong Kong flagged cargo ship departed South Carolina in July carrying 6,000 pounds of human remains valued at $67,204. The container’s temperature was set to 5 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent the parts from spoiling. Relatives of the dead, meanwhile, did not realize their loved ones’ remains were being dismembered and sent to Europe and elsewhere, the report notes.
Body brokers like Oregon-based MedCure rely on lax regulations to export heads, shoulders, knees and toes to Mexico, China, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, among several other countries. Plastic surgeons in Germany use heads to practice new techniques, while thousands of parts are shipped overseas annually.
I call this yummy food. Rats are the other white meat in China. So they might eat humans also.
“There are people who wouldn’t necessarily mind where the specimens were sent if they were fully informed,” Brandi Schmitt, who directs a body donation system at the University of California, told reporters about the trade, which is still shrouded in mystery. “But clearly there are plenty of donors that do mind and that don’t feel like they’re getting enough information.”
The FBI raided MedCure in November, which culminated in a federal investigation.
“MedCure is committed to meeting and exceeding the highest standards in the industry. It takes very seriously its obligation to not only deliver safe specimens securely, but to do it in a way that respects the donors,” said the company’s lawyer, Jeffrey Edelson, who declined to comment on the nature of the raid.
Families of those on in the ships were shocked to hear that their husbands, fathers, and daughters were shipped overseas.
Marie Gallegos, whose husband’s head was shipped to a dental school in Israel months after he died of a heart attack, told reporters that she “should have read the fine print” of the forms she signed allowing his parts to be donated for science and research.
“Had I known that my husband’s head was over there, I would have waited to have the ceremony,” she said. “If they really wanted my husband’s body for these purposes, they should have told me upfront and verbally.”
Regulators are also concerned the parts might be infected with HIV or some other highly infectious disease. There is a disconnect between what the industry and government believe is dangerous, Matthew Zahn, chairman of the public health committee for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told reporters.
“It’s a situation where we don’t have a huge amount of regulation or clarity as to what the risks are,” Zahn said. “It feels like one of those cracks in the system where a practice has developed, and the risk factors and oversight have not fully matured.”
Current regulations cover body parts intended for transplant, such as hearts and livers, which has allowed some unsavory elements of the industry to bubble to the top.
FBI investigators raided the warehouse of another so-called Body Broker last year and found a grisly discovery. Court papers reveal the building, owned and operated by businessman Arthur Rathburn, was littered with dead flies, dog bowls, and human remains frozen together in huge “chunks.”
Rathburn’s business, International Biological Inc (IBI), became a target after routine border stops that found he was ferrying human heads to Mexico on their way to forlorn parts of the globe, court records show. The jury ultimately found Rathburn guilty of fraud for supplying his customers with body parts infected with HIV and hepatitis.
“The fraud scheme orchestrated by IBI shocked even the most experienced of our investigative team,” FBI special-agent-in-charge David Gelios told reporters. Donors were “victimized as IBI intentionally and recklessly marketed and transported contaminated human remains… Personal greed overcame decency,” he said in a statement after the verdict.