US executives fear Chinese reprisals over Huawei arrest
At a closed-door security meeting of US companies in Singapore on Thursday, one topic was high on the agenda: The arrest of a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei and the potential backlash on US firms operating in China.
Officials from US companies who attended the event, a meeting of the local chapter of the US Department of State’s Overseas Security Advisory Council ( OSAC), voiced concerns about retaliation against US firms and their executives, two people with knowledge of the meeting said.
Several officials said that their companies were considering restricting non-essential China travel and looking to move meetings outside the country.
Security executives for companies including Walt Disney, Alphabet’s Google, Facebook, and PayPal Holdings attended the meeting, according to the sources and a LinkedIn posting.
The companies all declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
Following publication of this story, Google spokesperson Taj Meadows said in a statement that it “misrepresents” what happened at the meeting. He said that there was “no discussion on the record or behind closed doors about the arrest of a top Huawei executive or about US companies operating in China.”
Meadows also said that he was not at the meeting and could not say whether attendees discussed China travel informally.
The discussions at the meeting underscore concerns rippling through US businesses in the world’s second-largest economy, already facing a delicate balancing act amid a tense trade standoff between Washington and Beijing.
The formal agenda for the meeting, held at Google’s AsiaPacific headquarters in Singapore, included presentations on economic crime and terrorism in the region. OSAC promotes “security cooperation between American private sector interests worldwide and the US Department of State,” according to its website.
But informal conversations among attendees soon turned to possible risks in China prompted by the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer and “heiress” of Chinese telecom network equipment giant Huawei Technologies, who was detained in Canada on Dec. 1. News of the arrest was made public on Wednesday.
The arrest has roiled global markets amid fears that it could inflame the Sino-US trade row.
Risk consultants and analysts said that the arrest could prompt Beijing to retaliate in some form. “This will pressure a lot of Chinese officials to look strong in this dispute,” said Nick Marro, Hong Kong-based Asia analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, who added that technology companies were particularly at risk.
“This could mean either taking a stronger stance on trade negotia- tions, or taking a stronger stance on US tech firms in China.”
Asked whether there would be any retaliation against any foreign executives in China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Friday that China has always protected the lawful rights of foreigners in China in accordance with the law.
“Of course, in China they should respect China’s laws and rules.”
Prashant Nayak, Disney’s Asia Pacific director of corporate security, posted about OSAC’s Singapore meeting on LinkedIn, tagging other executives at Google, Facebook, Amazon.com, Marriot International, Microsoft and others.
The second person with knowledge of the event said the Huawei arrest and potential fallout was a hot topic at the meeting.
Asia-based risk consultants said they had seen a rise in the number of clients asking about the Huawei issue and potential concerns related to the impact on US firms in China.
Jakob Korslund, CEO of Singapore-based consultancy Deutsche Risk, said that his firm had received a number of queries in the past two days about the risks of traveling to China.
“For a few we have advised postponing trips that were not time critical, telling clients to wait for the next few weeks to see the situation,” he said.