The U.S. government announced that it would extend by 45 days a temporary license that allows U.S. businesses to buy equipment from and sell to Huawei. It is half the length of previous extensions. This is the fourth extension since May, when Washington put Huawei on its Entity List, which bans the company from buying U.S. components without special permission. But the Trump administration also launched a number of new accusations against the company, including racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets. Analysts said the moves indicate that the U.S. government is intensifying its campaign to stifle Huawei’s business. The Chinese company has been accused of stealing trade secrets and lying to U.S. federal investigators and having been engaged in a decades long effort to steal intellectual property, giving it an unfair advantage over competitors. The new indictment also alleges that Huawei engaged in covert efforts to ship its goods and services to Iran and North Korea, in violation of U.S., European and UN sanctions. Racketeering, obstruction of justice and money laundering have been added to the criminal case, unsealed in January last year, accusing Huawei of financial fraud due to misrepresentation to HSBC bank of its links to Starcom.

“The indictment paints a damning portrait of an illegitimate organization that lacks any regard for the law,” said U.S. Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr and Vice Chairman Mark Warner in a joint statement. The Senators said the latest indictment is “an important step in combating Huawei’s state-directed and criminal enterprise.” In a statement responding to the new accusations, Huawei said: “This new indictment is part of the Justice Department’s attempt to irrevocably damage Huawei’s reputation and its business for reasons related to competition rather than law enforcement. These new charges are without merit and are based largely on recycled civil disputes from the last 20 years that have been previously settled, litigated and in some cases, rejected by federal judges and juries”. Huawei added that the indictment was “unfounded and unfair”.

Huawei and four of its subsidiaries are accused of stealing intellectual property from six U.S. companies, thereby obtaining IP about robotics, cellular antenna technology and internet router source code, prosecutors said. The new charges came on the same day as new regulations took effect that tighten Washington’s oversight of foreign investment in the U.S. on national security grounds. The new rules give the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) broader powers to review and block any transactions in critical infrastructure, technology and personal data that are considered a potential threat to the U.S.

Concerning the license extension, Bai Ming, Senior Research Fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said Washington’s multiple extensions underline how rural U.S. telecom carriers rely heavily on Huawei equipment for network coverage and how U.S. consumers are hurt more when normal business links are severed for political reasons.

The new accusations are also expected to complicate relations between the U.S. and the UK as a few weeks ago UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Huawei would be allowed to supply equipment for non-core parts of the UK’s 5G network, although it also designated the Chinese company as a “high-risk vendor”. Huawei’s involvement would also be limited to 35% of equipment supplies to the peripheral networks and exclusion from the core network. The U.S. had urged its allies to totally block Huawei from supplying equipment and U.S. President Donald Trump was reported to be angry at Johnson for not following U.S. advice.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Embassy in Paris urged France to establish “transparent criteria and treat all companies in a similar way”. It warned France against treating Huawei differently from European competitors when it comes to future 5G network equipment contracts. The Chinese Embassy said that a difference in treatment based on the country of origin would be considered “blatant discrimination” and “disguised protectionism.” The statement further warned: “We do not wish to see the development” in China of Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson being “impacted because of discrimination and protectionism” against Huawei by France and other European countries.