WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday the United States will impose visa restrictions on Chinese technology firms, the latest move expected to strain relations between Washington and Beijing.
“State Department will impose visa restrictions on certain employees of Chinese tech companies like Huawei, that provide material support to regimes engaging in human rights violations and abuses globally,” Pompeo said.
The secretary of State described Huawei as “an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state that censors political dissidents and enables mass internment camps in Xinjiang and the indentured servitude of its population shipped all over China.”
He accused certain employees of the company of providing “material support to the Chinese Communist Party regime that commits human rights abuses,” but he didn’t offer specifics on the employees.
Pompeo, who has previously described Huawei and other Chinese state-backed businesses as “Trojan horses for Chinese intelligence,” said that Wednesday’s actions should serve as a warning for other tech companies.
