China slams US government for ‘bullying’ private firm Huawei

China has denounced the United States for using state power against Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

“The US’s use of state power to arbitrarily exert pressure on a private Chinese company like Huawei is typical economic bullying,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Wednesday at a meeting in Kyrgyzstan of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security group led by Beijing and Moscow.

US President Donald Trump put Huawei’s name on a trade blacklist last week, the latest in a campaign of pressure against the company.

The move effectively banned US companies from supplying the telecom giant and its affiliates with critical components over activities that Washington claimed ran counter to the US “national security” interests.

The top Chinese diplomat also accused the US administration of seeking to impede his country’s legitimate right to develop and progress.

“This extremely presumptuous and egocentric American approach is not able to gain the approval and support of the international community,” he added.

The world’s two largest economies have yet to set a date to resume trade talks after they re-engaged in a tariff battle earlier this month, with the US president raising punitive duties on $200 billion in Chinese goods and Beijing hiking its own tariffs on $60 billion in American products.

SS