07.27.20 - HSBC recently issued a statement denying emerging claims that it somehow "framed" Huawei to assist the US government. In a statement posted on the Chinese platform WeChat, the company assured that it does not have any hostility harbored against the Chinese tech giant.
HSBC issued the statement this past weekend after Chinese state media propagated a longstanding conspiracy that HSBC had been "setting traps to ensnare Huawei" in its legal battle with the United States.
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s CFO, was fairly recently arrested in Canada on the behalf of the US government. She was charged, along with the broader company, with bank fraud and evading state sanctions against Iran. The United States claims that Huawei, and Meng specifically, mischaracterized their relationship with Skycom (an Iranian telecom company) to the London based bank in an attempt to evade those sanctions. A Canadian court is currently pondering whether to extradite Meng to the United States to stand trial for the charges in a US court. Both Meng and Huawei have vehemently denied the charges.
Chinese state-run media has been targeting HSBC for the past year — whose roots and origins are in Hong Kong and Shanghai — for its supposed role in Meng's arrest. In its response, HSBC denied involvement in the DOJ’s (US Department of Justice) decision to charge Huawei or to request Meng's arrest in Canada.
"Recently, we noted some media updates which carried misinterpretation of the facts," HSBC said in its WeChat statement, which was provided to media outlets worldwide. "The timeline in the Huawei case makes it absolutely clear that HSBC did not prompt the investigation of Huawei. US government scrutiny of Huawei began long before HSBC got caught up in the case in late 2016. HSBC does not have any hostility toward Huawei and did not 'frame' Huawei."
Source: BBC
