(Bloomberg) -- Former FBI Director James Comey said the Trump's administration's actions against Huawei Technologies Co. stem from “a fact-based intelligence concern,” and aren't just part of a trade war with China.
Even before President Donald Trump fired him as FBI director in May 2017, Comey said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg News, it was clear that Huawei functioned as an “instrument” of the Chinese government.
“I am a critic of Donald Trump,” Comey said, “but despite the noise around Donald Trump, there are real facts" raising concern about Huawei. He agreed with the U.S. contention that there would be intelligence risks “once their technology is embedded in a 5G network.”
In May, Trump signed an order that's expected to restrict Huawei and another Chinese company, ZTE Corp., from selling their equipment in the U.S. In addition, the Commerce Department has put Huawei on a blacklist that forbids U.S. companies from doing business with it and more than 60 subsidiaries without special licenses.
Read More: How Huawei Became a Target for Governments
The U.S. also has pressed allies to bar the Chinese company from their developing 5G telecommunications networks. Huawei has denied it would spy for the government.
“Whatever they may say, they are required to do what the Chinese leadership tells them to do,” Comey said on the sidelines of the Salzburg Global Seminar in Salzburg, Austria. “And once their technology is embedded in a future 5G network, that's a very dangerous position to be in."
The dispute over Huawei has become a sticking point in efforts to reach a U.S.-China trade deal that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will discuss at the G-20 summit next week in Japan.
Congressional panels also have opened inquiries into Huawei and its potential reach. House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, has said his panel is starting “a deep dive” investigation into how China wields its power in technology and telecommunications, supply chains, foreign expansion and surveillance.
--With assistance from Shawn Donnan.
To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;Rosalind Mathieson in Salzburg at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert, Steve Geimann
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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