Huawei Executive Criticizes US Sanctions Tightening on Social Media: "Cybersecurity Is Just an Excuse"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] Huawei has criticized the United States for strengthening its sanctions.

According to local Chinese media on the 18th, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, reportedly said during a social network service (SNS) conversation with acquaintances, "The so-called cybersecurity, which the U.S. uses as a pretext for sanctions, is just an excuse," and claimed, "The key issue is that Huawei poses a threat to the U.S.'s technological hegemony."

Under this statement, CEO Yu also posted a link titled "Why is the U.S. trying to kill Huawei?" This conversation is known to have taken place on the Chinese messenger application WeChat.

The U.S. announced new sanctions against Huawei on the 15th (local time). The gist is that any company using even some U.S. semiconductor-related technology must obtain U.S. permission to manufacture and sell semiconductor products designed and ordered by Huawei.

These sanctions are regarded as measures to effectively sever the link between Huawei and the Taiwanese foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) company TSMC.

Since the U.S. government's sanctions began in May last year, Huawei has found it difficult to purchase semiconductor components from U.S. companies such as Qualcomm.

In response, Huawei attempted to circumvent U.S. sanctions by having its subsidiary HiSilicon design semiconductor products and entrusting their production to Taiwan's TSMC.

Meanwhile, according to Chinese technology media Jiweiwang, HiSilicon reportedly placed an order for semiconductor products worth $700 million (approximately 860 billion KRW) with TSMC just before the U.S. government's additional sanctions announcement. The media reported that this order volume is at a level that Huawei can use to produce smartphones for one quarter.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.