HONG KONG, May 29 (Reuters) - China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has filed a motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit against the U.S. government, according to a court filing in the United States, in the telecoms equipment maker’s latest attempt to fight sanctions from Washington that threaten to push it out of global markets.

The world’s largest telecom network gear maker has since faced even greater sanctions as the U.S. commerce department on May 16 put the firm on a trade blacklist that bans companies from doing business with Huawei, in a move which immediately disrupted the global tech sector.

Huawei, which has been given a 90-day reprieve from the ban, has denied that its products pose a security threat and protested Washington’s attempts to limit its business. </s> Huawei has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, claiming that its efforts to block the Chinese company from selling telecom equipment to federal agencies and other parties is unconstitutional. Huawei made the announcement at a press conference in Shenzhen, and executives read their prepared statements off of Huawei’s Mate X foldable smartphone.

The lawsuit was filed in Plano, Texas, where Huawei’s U.S. headquarters is based. The U.S. government has alleged for some time that the Chinese government could use Huawei’s telecommunications equipment to spy on U.S. networks, which is why it has gone so far as to persuade other governments to ban Huawei products. It has even disrupted a potential deal between Huawei and AT&T in 2018, where the carrier would sell the Chinese company’s smartphones. Huawei has repeatedly denied these allegations, and an executive at the press conference said the company “has not and will never implant any backdoors.”

Huawei’s biggest complaint is that the U.S. government has “never provided any evidence that Huawei poses a cyber security threat.” The company said it was left with no choice but to issue the lawsuit, which focuses on a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act. The provision specifically bans government agencies from purchasing telecommunications equipment from not just Huawei, but also ZTE. If you recall, ZTE was banned from the U.S. for most of 2018, but the ban has since lifted and it’s able to work with U.S. suppliers again.

The U.S. Justice Department recently accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets, and also accused the company of doing business with Iran despite U.S. sanctions. These charges were made in an effort to extradite Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, who was arrested and detained in Canada. A hearing is set to take place on May 8 to determine whether Wanzhou will face charges in the U.S.

Huawei has slowly been trying to repair its image in the U.S. — it placed full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal last week titled, “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“I am writing to you in the hopes that we can come to understand each other better,” Catherine Chen. director of the board at Huawei, wrote in the open letter. “In recent years, the US government has developed some misunderstandings about us. We would like to draw your attention to the facts.”

The letter goes on to mention the 170 countries and regions Huawei operates in, the company’s history, and the types of services it provides. </s> HONG KONG (Reuters) - China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has filed a legal motion seeking to declare a U.S. defense law unconstitutional, in the telecom equipment maker’s latest bid to fight sanctions from Washington that threaten to push it out of global markets.

The motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit against the U.S. government, filed late on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, asks a judge to declare the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) unconstitutional. Huawei filed its lawsuit in March.

The NDAA bill, passed by the U.S. Congress last summer, places a broad ban on federal agencies and their contractors from using Huawei equipment on national security grounds, citing the company’s ties with the Chinese government.

Huawei, the world’s largest telecoms network gear maker, has repeatedly denied it is controlled by the Chinese government, military or intelligence services.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo kept up the pressure on Huawei on Wednesday.

“Huawei is an instrument of the Chinese government,” Pompeo said in an interview with Fox Business Network. “They’re deeply connected. It’s something that’s hard for Americans to understand.”

Glen Nager, a partner at law firm Jones Day and lead counsel for Huawei, told Reuters the U.S. court had agreed on a schedule to hold hearings in September on motions by opposing sides.

Some legal experts said Huawei’s lawsuit was likely to be dismissed because U.S. courts are reluctant to second-guess national security determinations by other branches of government.

The lawsuit “will be an uphill battle because Congress has broad authority to protect us from perceived national security threats,” said Franklin Turner, a government contracts lawyer at McCarter & English.

In November 2018, a federal appeals court rejected a similar lawsuit filed by Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, which was challenging a ban on the use of the company’s software in U.S. government networks.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Commerce Department put Huawei on a trade blacklist that bans companies from doing business with the Chinese firm, a move which immediately disrupted the global tech sector.

Huawei’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, on Wednesday said the company was reviewing ways to fight the U.S. ban, which he said was affecting its more than 1,200 suppliers and threatened to affect its 3 billion customers in 170 countries.

Song said Washington’s use of administrative orders and laws to punish a single company “sets a very dangerous precedent.”

“Today it is telecom and Huawei, tomorrow it could be your company, your industry, your customers,” he told reporters at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen.

The ban, along with separate accusations of bank fraud and corporate theft that the United States has made against Huawei and its chief financial officer, has exacerbated the trade war between Beijing and Washington.

Huawei, which has been given a 90-day reprieve from the ban, has denied its products pose a security threat and protested Washington’s attempts to limit its business.

Vincent Pang, Huawei’s senior vice president and head of corporate communications, said the executive order and blacklist had transcended the boundaries of normal market competition.

“This could lead to the start of the fragmentation of the global tech ecosystem and standards,” Pang said on Wednesday at Huawei’s headquarters.

Pang also said he did not expect the “political” situation to delay the introduction in China of fifth-generation (5G) network technology. </s> The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the arrest of an executive of Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies (all times local):

A Japanese official has cast doubt over reports that Japan plans to exclude Chinese telecoms equipment makers Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp. from government purchases due to security concerns.

The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri reported Friday that Tokyo might take the action following the lead of the U.S. and some other countries.

The report, citing unnamed sources, said government officials planned to meet to discuss such a move.

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A senior official at the government office in charge of cybersecurity said Japan has not made such a decision. He said some new policy may be announced next week but it would likely not be what was being reported.

The dramatic arrest of a Chinese telecommunications executive has driven home why it will be so hard for the Trump administration to resolve its deepening conflict with China.

The Huawei Technologies executive, Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, faces extradition to the United States. A bail hearing was set for Friday.

In the short run, her arrest heightens skepticism about the trade truce that Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping reached last weekend in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Share markets were rattled by fears that the 90-day cease-fire won’t last.

Huawei has been a subject of U.S. national security concerns that extend well beyond tariffs or market access. Washington and Beijing are locked in a clash between the world’s two largest economies for economic and political dominance for decades to come.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. </s> SHENZHEN, China — Chinese tech giant Huawei is challenging a U.S. law that labels the company a security risk and would limit its access to the American market for telecom equipment.

Huawei Technologies Ltd.'s lawsuit, announced Thursday, asks a federal court to reject as unconstitutional a portion of this year's U.S. military appropriations act that bars the government and its contractors from using Huawei equipment.

It comes as the biggest global maker of network equipment fights a U.S. campaign to persuade allies to shun Huawei . That effort threatens to block access to major markets as phone carriers prepare to invest billions of dollars in next-generation, 5G networks.

The complaint, filed in Plano, Texas, the headquarters of Huawei's U.S. operations, cites the framers of the U.S. Constitution, including Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, in arguing that the law in question violates the constitutional separation of powers, denies due process and amounts to a "Bill of Attainder" that singles out a specific entity for adverse treatment.

It says the law causes the company "concrete and particularized injury, and imminent future injury" and subjects it to a "burden that is severe, permanent and inescapable" that amounts to a corporate "death penalty."

Huawei, China's first global tech brand, is at the center of U.S.-Chinese tensions over technology competition and cyber-spying. The company has spent years trying to put to rest accusations it facilitates Chinese spying or is controlled by the ruling Communist Party.

Increasingly, both sides appear to be resorting to courts to press their cases.

"We are compelled to take this legal action as a proper and last resort," the company's rotating chairman, Guo Ping, said at a news conference. Guo said the ban would limit competition, slowing the rollout of fifth-generation communications and raising consumer prices.

Huawei has pleaded not guilty to U.S. trade-theft charges after a federal court in Seattle unsealed a 10-count indictment in January against two of its units, Huawei Device Co. and Huawei Device USA. The charges include conspiracy to steal trade secrets, attempted theft of trade secrets, wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

The company's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, is fighting extradition to the U.S. after she was arrested in Vancouver, Canada on Dec. 1. U.S. prosecutors have filed charges accusing Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei's founder, of lying to banks about dealings with Iran.

At a routine briefing Thursday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman noted that the Chinese government has also objected to the law.

"We believe that it is perfectly proper and fully understandable for companies to defend their legitimate rights and interests through legal means," Lu Kang said. He said he had no information about whether China would join Huawei in the lawsuit.

Huawei has about 40 percent of the global market for network gear. Its U.S. sales evaporated after a congressional panel in 2012 cited the company and a Chinese competitor, ZTE Corp ., as security risks and told phone carriers to avoid dealing with them.

U.S. authorities "have hacked our servers and stolen our emails" but have presented no evidence to support their security claims, Guo said. He complained Washington was "sparing no effort to smear" the company.

Huawei says the new law would shrink its potential U.S. market further by prohibiting the government from buying the Chinese vendor's technology and from buying goods or services from or giving grants or loans to companies or other third parties that do. The United States accounts for 20 to 25 percent of the global market for computer and telecom technology.

Huawei says the U.S. law it is protesting improperly has Congress play the role of a court.

The ban is "based on numerous false, unproven and untested propositions," said Song Liuping, the company's chief legal officer, at the news conference. "Huawei has an excellent security record and program. No contrary evidence has been offered."

The Chinese government says Washington fabricates or exaggerates security concerns to block competition.

Huawei, based in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, is a leading developer of 5G along with rivals Nokia Corp. of Finland and Sweden's LM Ericsson. Industry analysts say excluding the Chinese vendor from markets for 5G equipment would reduce competition and might lead to higher prices.

Founded in 1987 by a former military engineer, Huawei overtook Ericsson in 2017 as the biggest global supplier of network gear. It says it supplies 45 of the world's top 50 phone companies and has contracts with 30 carriers to test 5G wireless technology.

European governments are balking at U.S. pressure to ban Huawei. The company has announced contracts with customers including the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East for network technology.

China's government arrested two Canadians, a former diplomat and a businessman, on Dec. 10 in what was widely seen as an attempt to pressure Canada to release Meng, the company's CFO.

On Monday, Beijing accused the two men of acting together to steal state secrets . That followed the Canadian government's announcement Friday that the extradition proceeding for Meng would be allowed to continue.

Huawei executives say American security warnings have yet to affect sales outside the United States . The company's 2018 revenue forecast is $100 billion and its founder, Ren Zhengfei, said last month this year's target is $125 billion.

Some European officials and others cite a Chinese security law requiring companies to cooperate with intelligence agencies they say might oblige Huawei and other tech companies to install "backdoors" in equipment to allow eavesdropping.

Huawei denies altering its equipment to facilitate spying. It has set up testing centers in Britain, Canada and continental Europe to allow governments to examine its technology.

"Huawei has not and will never implant 'backdoors,' " said Guo, the chairman. </s> Canadian authorities have arrested the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies for possible extradition to the United States.

Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday, Justice Department spokesman Ian McLeod said.

Mr McLeod said a publication ban had been imposed in the case and he could not provide further details.

The ban was sought by Meng, who has a bail hearing on Friday, he said.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that US authorities are investigating whether Chinese tech giant Huawei violated sanctions on Iran.

Meng is also deputy chairman of the board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei. </s> The U.S. is no fan of Huawei.

Its officials have spent months warning that the Chinese giant's smartphones and networking gear could be Trojan horses for Chinese spies (something Huawei has denied). They have threatened to withhold intelligence from any ally that allows the firm in.

On May 15, they raised the stakes. President Donald Trump barred U.S. firms from using telecoms equipment made by firms posing a "risk to national security." His order named no names. But its target was plain.

For all the drama, the import ban hardly matters. Huawei has long been barred from the U.S., in practice if not on paper. More significant was the announcement by the Commerce Department, on the same day, that it was adding Huawei to a list of firms with which U.S. companies cannot do business without official permission. That amounts to a prohibition on exports of U.S. technology to Huawei.

It is a seismic decision. Supply chains are specialized and globally connected. Cutting them off — "weaponizing interdependence," in the jargon — can cause serious disruption.

When ZTE, another Chinese technology company, received the same treatment in 2018 for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran, it was brought to the brink of ruin. It survived only because Trump intervened, claiming it was a favor to Xi Jinping, China's president.

Huawei matters more than ZTE. It is China's biggest high tech company, and is seen as a national champion. Its name translates roughly as "Chinese achievement." Revenues of $105 billion put it in the same league as Microsoft. Only Samsung, a South Korean firm, sells more smartphones.

Huawei holds many crucial patents on superfast 5G mobile networks, and is the largest manufacturer of telecoms equipment. Were it to go under, the shock waves would rattle the entire tech world.

The impact of the ban is becoming clear. Google said it had stopped supplying the proprietary components of its Android mobile operating system to Huawei. A string of U.S. chipmakers, including Intel, Qualcomm and Micron, have also ceased sales.

On May 20, the Commerce Department softened slightly, saying that firms could continue to supply Huawei for 90 days, but for existing products — for instance, with software updates for Huawei phones already in use. New sales, on which Huawei's future revenue depends, remain banned.

But interdependence cuts both ways. Shares in U.S. technology firms fell after the announcement, because Huawei is a big customer. Qorvo, which employs 8,600 people and makes wireless communication chips, derives 15% of its revenue from Huawei. Micron is in the memory business, of which Huawei is a big consumer.

A report last week from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a think tank, estimated that export controls could cost U.S. firms as much as $56 billion in lost sales over five years.

Unlike Intel, Qualcomm or ZTE, Huawei is privately owned. It lacks listed shares whose price swing would hint at the extent of its distress, though the price of its listed bonds has dropped to 94 cents on the dollar.

In public, the firm is staying calm. Ren Zhengfei, Huawei's founder, said it would be "fine" without access to U.S. technology. Huawei has spoken of activating a "Plan B." It has been stockpiling crucial components for months, and has made a push to become less reliant on U.S. technology over the past few years. Its phones in particular make extensive use of chips designed by HiSilicon, its in-house chipdesign unit.

Yet few analysts are as sanguine as Ren. Three business areas in particular look vulnerable. Without Google's cooperation, new Huawei phones will lack the latest versions of Android, and popular apps such as Gmail or Maps. That may not matter in China, where Google's apps are forbidden. But it could be crippling in Europe, Huawei's second-biggest market.

Its telecoms business needs beefy server chips from Intel. The supply of software to manage those networks could dry up too. Huawei is developing replacements for all three, but they are far from ready.

Two questions will determine whether Huawei can weather the storm, said Dieter Ernst, a chip expert at the East-West Center, a think tank in Honolulu. The first concerns U.S. motives. The timing of the ban, a few days after broader trade talks between China and the U.S. had broken down, was suggestive. On one reading, it is a tactical move designed to wring concessions from China. If so, it might prove short-lived, and Huawei's stockpiles may tide it over.

Paul Triolo of Eurasia Group, a political-risk consultancy, is doubtful. Rather than a negotiating tactic, he sees the ban as "the logical endgame of the U.S. campaign to take down Huawei." A long-lasting ban would force the firm to look for alternative chips and software that Chinese suppliers would struggle to provide.

The second question concerns the reach of U.S. power. The tangled nature of chip-industry supply chains means that many non-U. S. companies make use of American parts or intellectual property, Ernst said. They may therefore consider themselves covered, wholly or partly, by the ban. Take Arm, a Britain-based firm whose technology powers chips in virtually every phone. Arm dsof it will comply with the Commerce Department's rules. That suggests that Arm will not grant Huawei new licenses. It is unclear whether Arm will offer support for existing licenses, however. As Arm's technology advances, Huawei risks being left behind.

Other non-U. S. companies are as important. One industry insider said U.S. officials are pressing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), a cutting-edge chipmaker, to drop Huawei, which is its third-biggest customer. That would be a crushing blow because Chinese chip factories are not up to the task of manufacturing HiSilicon's sophisticated designs. TSMC's only peer is Samsung — and South Korea is another U.S. ally. TSMC said it would continue supplying Huawei for now.

Even if the optimists are right, and the ban is lifted in exchange for trade concessions, a return to business as usual seems unlikely. The U.S. has twice demonstrated a willingness to throttle big Chinese companies. Trust in U.S. technology firms has been eroded, Triolo said.

China has committed billions of dollars to efforts to boost its domestic capabilities in chipmaking and technology. For its rulers, the U.S. bans highlight the urgency of that policy. </s> Huawei said it had filed a complaint in a federal court in Texas challenging the constitutionality of Section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a section signed into law by the U.S. president in August that banned federal agencies and their contractors from procuring its equipment and services.

"The U.S. Congress has repeatedly failed to produce any evidence to support its restrictions on Huawei products. We are compelled to take this legal action as a proper and last resort," Huawei Rotating Chairman Guo Ping said in a statement.

"This ban not only is unlawful, but also restricts Huawei from engaging in fair competition, ultimately harming U.S. consumers. We look forward to the court's verdict, and trust that it will benefit both Huawei and the American people."

While Huawei had very little market share in the U.S. telecoms market before the bill, it is the world's biggest producer of telecoms equipment and is seeking to be at the forefront of a global roll-out of fifth generation (5G) mobile networks and services.

"Lifting the NDAA ban will give the U.S. Government the flexibility it needs to work with Huawei and solve real security issues," Guo said.

In its lawsuit, Huawei said its "equipment and services are subject to advanced security procedures, and no backdoors, implants, or other intentional security vulnerabilities have been documented in any of the more than 170 countries in the world where Huawei equipment and services are used."

The privately owned firm has embarked on a public relations and legal offensive as Washington lobbies allies to abandon Huawei when building 5G mobile networks, centering on a 2017 Chinese law requiring companies cooperate with national intelligence work.

Founder and Chief Executive Ren Zhengfei has said Huawei, the world's biggest telecoms gear maker, has never and will never share data with China's government.

The NDDA bans the U.S. government from doing business with Huawei or compatriot peer ZTE Corp or from doing business with any company that has equipment from the two firms as a "substantial or essential component" of their system.

In its lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, Huawei argues that the section of the law is illegal because it could sharply limit the company's ability to do business in the United States despite no proof of wrongdoing.

Separately, the lawsuit also alleges that Huawei has been denied due process and that Congress, by stripping Huawei of U.S. commercial opportunities, has violated the "separation of powers" portion of the constitution by doing the work of the courts.

Some legal experts, however, said Huawei's lawsuit is likely to be dismissed because U.S. courts are reluctant to second-guess national security determinations by other branches of government.

The lawsuit "will be an uphill battle because Congress has broad authority to protect us from perceived national security threats," said Franklin Turner, a government contracts lawyer at McCarter & English.

In November 2018, a federal appeals court rejected a similar lawsuit filed by Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, which was challenging a ban on the use of the company's software in U.S. government networks.

The Texas court hearing Huawei's case will not be bound by that decision, but will likely adopt its reasoning because of the similarities in the two disputes, said Steven Schwinn, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

"I don't see how (Huawei) can really escape that result," said Schwinn.

If a judge decides Huawei has a plausible claim the case will proceed to the discovery phase, in which internal documents are shared and U.S. government officials could be forced to provide testimony and lay out their national security concerns.

The legal action and public relations outreach compare with a more restrained response in December emphasizing "trust in justice" when its chief financial officer, Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Vancouver at U.S. request.

The United States has accused Meng - Ren's daughter - of bank and wire fraud related to breaches of trade sanctions against Iran.

Meng appeared in court on Wednesday during which her lawyer expressed concern that the allegations have a political character, raising U.S. President Donald Trump's comments on the case.

Separately, Meng, who is fighting extradition, is suing Canada's government for procedural wrongs in her arrest.

The case had strained relations with China, which this week accused two arrested Canadians of stealing state secrets in a move widely seen as retribution for Meng's arrest.

While Meng is under house arrest in Vancouver, it is unclear where the two Canadians are being detained in China. Sources previously told Reuters that at least one of the Canadians did not have access to legal representation.

Ren met international media for the first time in several years in mid-January, calling U.S. President Donald Trump "great" and refraining from commenting directly on Meng's case. Shifting tone, Ren in mid-February said Meng's arrest was politically motivated and "not acceptable".

Long before Trump initiated a trade war with China, Huawei's activities were under scrutiny by U.S. authorities, according to interviews with 10 people familiar with the Huawei probes and documents related to the investigations seen by Reuters. </s> Huawei Rotating Chairman Guo Ping, center, speaks during a press conference in Shenzhen city, China's Guangdong province, Thursday, March 7, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei is launching a U.S. court challenge to a law that labels the company a security risk and would limit its access to the American market for telecom equipment. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Huawei Rotating Chairman Guo Ping, center, speaks during a press conference in Shenzhen city, China's Guangdong province, Thursday, March 7, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei is launching a U.S. court challenge to a law that labels the company a security risk and would limit its access to the American market for telecom equipment. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

(AP) — Chinese tech giant Huawei is challenging a U.S. law that would limit its American sales of telecom equipment on security grounds as the company steps up efforts to preserve its access to global markets for next-generation communications.

Huawei Technologies Ltd.’s lawsuit, announced Thursday, asks a federal court to reject as unconstitutional a portion of this year’s U.S. military appropriations act that bars the government and its contractors from using Huawei equipment.

It comes as the biggest global maker of network equipment fights a U.S. campaign to persuade allies to shun Huawei. That threatens to block access to major markets as phone carriers prepare to invest billions of dollars in fifth-generation, or 5G, networks.

The complaint filed in Plano, Texas, the headquarters of Huawei’s U.S. operations, says the law is an unconstitutional “bill of attainder,” or a measure that singles out a specific entity for punishment. It says that denies the company due process and amounts to a “death penalty.”

The American Embassy in Beijing said it had no comment on pending litigation.

Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, is at the center of U.S.-Chinese tensions over technology competition and cyberspying. The company has spent years trying to put to rest accusations it facilitates Chinese spying or is controlled by the ruling Communist Party.

“We are compelled to take this legal action as a proper and last resort,” the company’s rotating chairman, Guo Ping, said at a news conference. Guo said the ban would limit competition, slowing the rollout of fifth-generation communications and raising consumer prices.

Huawei has pleaded not guilty to U.S. trade-theft charges unsealed by a federal court in Seattle in January.

The company’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested Dec. 1 in Canada on U.S. charges of lying to banks about dealings with Iran. She is fighting extradition to the United States.

A foreign ministry spokesman said the Chinese government also objects to the law but he had no information on whether it would join Huawei’s lawsuit.

“We believe that it is perfectly proper and fully understandable for companies to defend their legitimate rights and interests through legal means,” Lu Kang said.

Huawei has about 40 percent of the global market for network gear. Its U.S. sales evaporated after a congressional panel in 2012 cited the company and a Chinese competitor, ZTE Corp., as security risks and told phone carriers to avoid dealing with them.

Huawei says the new law would shrink its potential U.S. market further by prohibiting the government from buying the Chinese vendor’s technology and from buying goods or services from or giving grants or loans to companies or other third parties that do. The United States accounts for 20 to 25 percent of the global market for computer and telecom technology.

The ban is “based on numerous false, unproven and untested propositions,” the company’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, said at the news conference. “Huawei has an excellent security record and program. No contrary evidence has been offered.”

Australia, Japan, Taiwan and some other governments also have imposed curbs on use of Huawei technology.

Guo complained Washington was “sparing no effort to smear” the company but has released no evidence.

Huawei wants to negotiate with Washington to resolve its security concerns but the law blocks President Donald Trump from restoring market access, Guo said. He noted Trump has said he opposes using “artificial security reasons” to exclude Huawei.

Lifting the ban “will give the U.S. government the flexibility it needs to work with Huawei and solve real security issues,” Guo said.

Huawei, based in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, is a leading developer of 5G, along with rivals Nokia Corp. of Finland and Sweden’s LM Ericsson. Industry analysts say excluding the Chinese vendor from markets for 5G equipment would reduce competition and might lead to higher prices.

Founded in 1987 by a former military engineer, Huawei overtook Ericsson in 2017 as the biggest global supplier of network gear. It says it supplies 45 of the world’s top 50 phone companies and has contracts with 30 carriers to test 5G wireless technology.

Chinese authorities and some industry analysts say Washington might be exaggerating security concerns to limit competition with Western vendors.

European governments are balking at U.S. pressure to ban Huawei. The company has announced contracts with customers including the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East for network technology.

China’s government arrested two Canadians, a former diplomat and a businessman, on Dec. 10 in what was widely seen as an attempt to pressure Canada to release Meng, the company’s CFO.

On Monday, Beijing accused the two men of acting together to steal state secrets. That followed the Canadian government’s announcement Friday that the extradition proceeding for Meng would be allowed to proceed.

Huawei executives say American security warnings have yet to affect sales outside the United States. The company’s 2018 revenue forecast is $100 billion and its founder, Ren Zhengfei, said last month this year’s target is $125 billion.

Some European officials and others cite a Chinese security law requiring companies to cooperate with intelligence agencies. They say that might oblige Huawei and other tech companies to install “backdoors” in equipment to allow eavesdropping.

Huawei denies altering its equipment to facilitate spying. It has set up testing centers in Britain, Canada and continental Europe to allow governments to examine its technology.

“Huawei has not and will never implant ‘backdoors,'” said Guo, the chairman.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) bans Huawei scientists from reviewing submissions to its peer-reviewed journals, due to the "severe legal implications" of U.S. sanctions against the Chinese company.