UK snub, CFO arrest: Huawei woes deepen

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it has been given little information on the arrest in Canada of its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei.

Meng was detained at the request of the United States, which sought her extradition to face ‘‘unspecified charges’’, when she was transferring flights in Canada, the company said.

reported that the arrest was in relation to sanctions-busting in Iran, rather than any concerns about espionage by the Chinese firm, which has annual revenues of US$93 billion (NZ$135b) and is deeply embedded with many New Zealand telcos.

But Huawei said in a statement that it was not aware of any wrongdoing by Meng.

Separately, the BBC reported that British telco BT would not use Huawei’s equipment in its 5G mobile network.

BT still planned to use Huawei phone mast antennas and some other products from Huawei, it said. BT is also removing Huawei equipment from the core of its existing 3G and 4G networks, the BBC reported.

2degrees is the only New Zealand operator that uses Huawei to supply its core mobile network.

Spark also uses network access equipment from Huawei in cellphone towers, though not in its core mobile network. Spark spokesman Andrew Pirie said that meant BT’s decision had no direct implications for Spark.

Last week, New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) rejected a proposal from Spark under which it would have used equipment from Huawei to build a 5G network.

The US and Australian governments have long expressed concerns about the security implications of using telecommunications equipment from China.

The US has also been investigating the alleged shipping of USmade products to Iran and other countries by Huawei since 2016, an activity that would violate US sanctions laws.

Huawei New Zealand deputy chief executive Andrew Bowater said a proposed $400 million investment in New Zealand that Huawei announced after Ren met former prime minister Bill English in 2017 was ‘‘up in the air’’. The plans included building a cloud computing centre, and sourcing more products and services locally.

‘‘Everything is up in the air until we get some clarity [on the GCSB decision],’’ Bowater said.