to allegations – primarily from the United States government – that its telecom infrastructure equipment may contain backdoors that enable unauthorised surveillance by the Chinese government entities (citing, in particular, its founder having previously worked for the People's Liberation Army). Cybersecurity concerns over Huawei intensified with the development of 5G wireless networks, with calls to prevent the company from providing equipment for them, and to prevent use of products by Huawei, or fellow Chinese telecom ZTE, by government entities. Several major U.S. wireless carriers, as well as retailer Best Buy, began to drop Huawei's products in early-2018, prompting Huawei to pull out of the market entirely due to unmarketability. The company has argued that its products posed "no greater cybersecurity risk" than those of any other vendor, andthat there is no evidence of the U.S. espionage claims.









In 2017, Huawei began helping BYD build a standardized, smart factory. In December 2018, Huawei's vice-chairperson and CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on 1 December 2018, at the request of the United States, which accuses her of violating US sanctions against Iran. The U.S. Department of Justice filed formal charges of fraud, obstruction of justice, and theft of trade secrets against Huawei in January 2019.









The name Huawei may be translated as "splendid act" or "China is able". However, pronunciation of Huawei by non-Chinese varies in other countries, for example "Hua Way" or "How Wee" in the United States and "Hoe-ah-wei" in the Netherlands. The company had considered changing the name in English as it was concerned that