Press Releases

Congressman Jim Banks (IN-03), a member of the House Armed Services and Education and Workforce Committees, today issued the following statement regarding the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei Technologies:

“The arrest of Huawei’s CFO for attempting to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran is not surprising. Evasive and illegal tactics are Huawei’s specialty. I applaud this action taken by our Canadian partners. Huawei is a state-directed entity actively undermining America’s national security, and I will continue to call out their activities.” 

Earlier this year, Banks and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a letter signed by 26 members of Congress to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos raising concerns that Huawei is exploiting research partnerships on U.S. college campuses to spy and steal intellectual property. The letter asked the Department of Education to look into Huawei’s research partnerships with more than 50 higher education institutions located in the United States.

In June, Eric Xu, Deputy Chairman of Huawei, criticized Banks and Rubio, saying that they “are quite closed-minded and ill-informed. It seems that their bodies are in the information age, but their minds are still in the agrarian age. Their behavior shows not just an ignorance of how science and innovation works today, but also their own lack of confidence.”

###