Huawei to finally exit US market after years of Cyberspying accusations

After years of accusations of being proxy spies for Chinese military and intelligence agencies, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei says his company is exiting the US market. In an interview provided to French journalists, the CEO of the worlds largest telecommunications equipment provider says his company will no longer fight to stay in the US market.

“If Huawei gets in the middle of U.S-China relations,” and causes problems, “it’s not worth it,” Ren reportedly said, according to a Chinese transcript of the interview. “Therefore, we have decided to exit the U.S. market, and not stay in the middle.”

There’s no firm definition of what the company’s “exit” will mean at this point, but US lawmakers and regulators have been asking US businesses to stop doing business with Huawei for years. The US market is a major loss for the company as its one of the largest and most important for any technology company. The interview with French media has received wide coverage inside of China but hasn’t appeared in most US-based media. As part of the Softbank, Sprint Nextel merger earlier this year, both companies offered to try to “phase out” equipment from Huawei as a condition of their merger.

Will this mean the end of Huawei devices in the US? If a Huawei device falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

via Foreign Policy