Eight years after US prosecutors secretly charged China's Huawei Technologies with defrauding HSBC and other banks over its business with Iran, the case is finally heading for trial.
Huawei also faces charges of conspiring to steal trade secrets from five US technology companies, and is accused of lying about its dealings in North Korea and supplying surveillance equipment to Iran to track protesters during 2009 anti-government demonstrations in Tehran. Jury selection began on Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
The trial will bring to a close one of the US government's earliest and most closely watched battles against a Chinese company. The case will play out as tech competition heats up between the two countries and Washington seeks to prevent American technology from aiding Beijing's military. The US-China tech war has now spread across multiple technology sectors, including artificial intelligence.
The saga began in 2018 with the arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, which sparked a diplomatic crisis involving the United States, China and Canada.
Convictions on the Iran-related charges would bolster Washington's case for having placed Huawei, one of China's leading technology companies, on a US trade blacklist in 2019, citing alleged criminal conduct that threatened national security.
