Google and other tech companies visited the White House today to discuss the U.S. ban on Chinese tech company Huawei. Google, which was recently accused of “treason” by Peter Thiel over its links to China, has yet to comment on the meeting — but Huawei seems to believe that the Silicon Valley tech giant is on its side.
In a recent interview with NPR, Hua Liang, the Chairman of Huawei, praised Google, and appeared to suggest that the big tech company is is lobbying on its behalf in Washington, and would continue to do so.
“Google is a very responsible company. We have maintained very good cooperation with each other,” Liang said through a translator at Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen, China. “We really look forward to productive results from the communication that Google is currently having with the Commerce Department.”
When the Huawei ban first went into effect, and Google announced it would cut ties, there was an outcry. Days later, the Trump administration said it would postpone parts of the ban until August.
The outsize power of American tech giants is well-understood the world over. Huawei’s Liang is now leaning on Google to influence the Commerce Department on his company’s behalf.
“We really hope that there are possible remedies coming out of the communication between Google and the Commerce Department,” he said. “We think that it is in the benefit of the consumers if they could work out a solution.”
The interview failed to get much traction in the press, which no doubt suits Google. Since Peter Thiel’s call for criminal investigations into the company’s links to China, Google is under unprecedented scrutiny. It couldn’t be a worse time for the company to receive praise from the Chairman of Huawei.
Breitbart News has reached out to Google for comment.
Are you a source at Google, Facebook, YouTube or any other corporation who wants to confidentially blow the whistle on wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari securely at allumbokhari@protonmail.com.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.
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