Huawei has fired an employee suspected of espionage
Huawei has fired an employee arrested in Poland on suspicion of espionage. According to Huawei, the employee has discredited the company, although the espionage is not directly related to activities of the Chinese telecom company.
Weijing Wang, who worked at the Polish branch of Huawei as director of marketing. According to CNN, which received a statement from Huawei, Wang has since been fired. The statement says that while the employee has created a bad image, it further denies that the suspicious activities are related to the company itself. That, incidentally, is something that Polish intelligence services have confirmed to Reuters news agency.
The former director was arrested last week, and Polish authorities say the operation is the result of a lengthy and thorough investigation into the employee’s espionage activities. Documents and storage media were seized during a raid on Huawei’s office in Poland, which Poland’s intelligence agency will analyze.
Following the raid and the arrests, Polish Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski suggested that the EU and NATO should come up with a response. Brudzinski wants to consider excluding Huawei from the European markets.
Huawei CFO Wangzhou Meng was previously arrested in Canada at the request of the US. She has since been released on bail, but the arrest has sparked anger among the Chinese government. After the arrest of Meng, China responded by arresting a number of Canadians. Western governments have long been concerned that Huawei is being used by the Chinese government as an extension for spying.