‘Warsaw is wooing Washington’: Chinese media outraged after Huawei executive’s arrest

The Beijing-run Global Times newspaper has called for “counter measures” in response to the “bullying of Chinese enterprises” as Poland considers banning Huawei products.

Poland “must pay for the offense”stated the leading Chinese daily in a harsh op-ed following the arrest of the senior Huawei official in Warsaw on Friday. The Global Times also claimed that the arrest has a clear political purpose.

“Warsaw is wooing Washington,” the paper said in relation to the US allegations of Huawei building backdoors for spying into its smartphones.

The article also claims that Huawei’s potential blow will affect the whole country and “China must not be soft at this point.”

Global Times’ rigorous statement came shortly after a senior Polish official said Warsaw may opt for banning the private use of Huawei products in the country. Officials may also be weighing the prospects of increased state control over the Chinese products which are seemingly a threat to national security.

Huawei’s sales director Wang Weijing was arrested on Friday by the Polish counterintelligence service, the Internal Security Agency (ABW). A Polish national who is former ABW employee was also detained for alleged espionage.

The hard-hitting arrests followed the December detention of Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada.

Huawei, the world’s biggest telecom equipment supplier and second largest smartphone manufacturer, is accused by the US and other Western nations of spying and working in concert with the Chinese government.

Since the US-China trade war unfolded in 2018, the Trump administration has been particularly persistent in trying to blacklist Huawei worldwide. Along with Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK, Washington has barred Huawei from helping to build 5G networks.

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