Did Huawei Really Steal?

Is the US right to have security concerns?

By now most of us have already seen the news of the US Commerce Department extending sanctions against Huawei while adding further conditions to the company. Ever since the original blacklisting back in May 2019, the US was adamant about the existing security concerns with Huawei. But what exactly are these security concerns? Did Huawei steal tech? More importantly, why is the US so keen on strangling the Chinese tech giant?

A questionable past

Now, the US is coming after the company mainly because its 5G initiatives will give Huawei an upper hand in the technology game. America is like that grumpy kid who threw a tantrum because he didn’t get the toy he likes. Now that kid doesn’t want anybody else to have that toy either.

But the allegations against Huawei are not completely unfounded. In fact, the Chinese tech giant has a very questionable past.

The first notable incident goes back to 2003. Cisco sued Huawei accusing the company of stealing Cisco’s router technology. An excerpt from Cisco’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Huawei read, “Defendants[Huawei] have engaged in what amounts to theft of Cisco’s intellectual property by misappropriating and copying Cisco’s source code, duplicating Cisco’s user…