The Huawei episode raises serious concerns over issues that are relevant to international business and trade.
What is the background?
One of the world’s largest telecom companies, Huawei, is at war with a few powerful western nations led by the United States.
Recently, the chief financial officer (CFO) of Huawei Ms. Meng was arrested in Canadafor allegedly breaking U.S. sanctions on Iran by way of bank frauds.
The CFO is alleged to have tricked financial institutions into making transactions that violated US sanctions against Iran. Click here to know more.
Thus, the U.S had asked Canada to detain her.
A Canadian court has granted her bail, but she could face extradition to the U.S.
The incident, which has led to an uproar in China, has left Canada embarrassed, as any decision will have a bearing on its ties with Beijing.
What are the charges made against Huawei?
China, along with Russia, has long been suspect in the eyes of the West for spying.
The basis for this being proven instances of online attacks and unestablished cases of breaches in western computer systems.
In the case of Huawei, the western line is that as it is a corporation close to the Chinese establishment, its activities cannot be purely technological and commercial.
They had also alleged that the founder of Huawei has links with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The specific charge against Huawei is that in every piece of hardware sold by it, there are microchips and devices that provide substantial information to the Chinese authorities.
However, there has been no major irrefutable evidence communicated to the rest of the world to substantiate this charge.
Western agencies say that Huawei is so smart and skilful that it is impossible to find out such evidence.
But Huawei has dismissed the charges against it as fanciful and motivated by the U.S.
What does the conflict reveal?
The conflict between China and the West, especially the U.S., raises serious concerns over issues with respect to international business and trade.
The first is its impact on the troubled state of international relations and international law that operates in such cases.
Some experts cite the concept of ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ in support of the U.S. action.
Such jurisdiction empowers a nation to enforce its laws and rules over foreign entities, generally through courts.
However, this concept has a political colour to it and, therefore becomes questionable in cases such as Ms. Meng’s arrest.
There is also the issue of the apparent ease and arbitrariness with which a nation determined to outwit a rival can hit the latter hard.
The detention of Ms. Meng was obviously meant to send out a signal not only to China but also to prospective violators of U.S. sanctions.
The case also reveals that a nation acting so peremptorily may have to brace itself to meet retaliatory action by the targeted nation.
Also, there does not seem to be an ethical set of rules, if one country violates the permitted sanctions.
Thus there is a need for a protocol between nations in the area of criminal justice.
Also, there is a continued fragility of cybersecurity as far as the average computer user is concerned.
Breaches even in highly protected environments across the globe hardly instil confidence in ordinary customers.
There is, therefore, a growing reluctance on the part of many large corporations to invest more in cybersecurity.
This has led to a view that one should not be unduly agitated over inevitable cyberattacks, as long as they do not cause major loss, economic or reputational.
