NEW YORK, NY May 30 (DPI) – The chief legal officer of Chinese technology giant Huawei declared in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week that his company isn’t linked to the Chinese Communist Party – a claim so dubious that readers reacted with sarcasm.

Song Liuping’s attempt to cite the US Constitution – and announce plans to sue the US – in its defense of US charges of intellectual property theft and government-controlled spying came across as another Chinese effort to game the rule of law, while trying to ignore the charges and gain an upper hand against its accusers, in this case the Trump administration.

Some intelligent readers fired back at the Huawei executive, with a force that raised the question: Did the WSJ publish the executive’s op-ed knowing it appears he doesn’t understand the nature of legal action?After all, Huawei, if it gets in a legal action with the US, will be subject to robust discovery – something the legal officer made no mention of.

Such ignorance on the part of the Huawei lawyer raised the question: Did the WSJ run the logically flawed op-ed simply to watch readers react?

And react they did – here are the most popular comments:

Mr. Song,
When you file a lawsuit, then we get to invoke “discovery”…
That means we get to see EVERY detail of your company, its technology, and IP, and even every single line of code in software, firmware, and beyond.  Every document.  Every email.  Every phone record.  EVERYTHING.
Are you sure you want that?   How do you expect to win without full compliance in “discovery”?
Several key nations have identified your firm as a security risk.  You don’t need a lawsuit to disprove that.  Your lawsuit can be easily interpreted as tacit admission of you r complicity with the communist party…

Exactly right. Mr. Song, you assert, “The law applies to other companies if the defense secretary “reasonably believes”—subject to judicial review—that they are “owned or controlled” by, or “otherwise connected to,” the Chinese government. But it directly and permanently applies to Huawei without opportunity for rebuttal or escape.’
I can’t wait to see you disclose (and then try to rebut) your real ownership.

Huawei’s leadership and majority owners could easily demonstrate their independence from the Chinese government by denouncing the Communist Party’s one-party rule, demanding the right of the Chinese people to form independent political parties, calling for free and fair multiparty elections with foreign observers throughout the country, return of civil, political, and human rights to Hong Kong, and the release of all political prisoners (note: this is far from an exhaustive list of requirements).
Then, perhaps, the tune Mr. Song sings may gain a bit of credibility.

Nice alligator tears, Mr. Song.
As noted elsewhere, Huawei is bound by Chinese law to spy for them.
This lawsuit is similar to a crime boss trying to use the U.S. government on some technicality.
The way that Huawei has built its business by stealing from others is despicable.(e.g., note that in the recent lawsuit brought by Cisco, Huawei not only copied their code illegally, but even reprinted their user manuals verbatim, and the code even included several bugs from the original Cisco software.  Truly despicable.)