Huawei UK board members resign over silence on Ukraine invasion
- Reference: 1646891953
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/10/huawei_uk_board_members_resign/
- Source link:
Board members Sir Andrew Cahn and Sir Ken Olisa allegedly told the company on Wednesday they are leaving their non-executive director roles.
Cahn, former CEO of UK Trade and Investment, became a non-executive director in 2015 after four years as chairman of the Huawei Technologies UK advisory board. Olisa, whose many distinguished roles include serving as Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, became a director in 2018. Their beef allegedly is that Huawei has not publicly condemned the ongoing war – though it should be noted the Chinese company typically does not comment on political issues.
[1]
China is one of 35 countries that chose to abstain from a vote on a United Nations resolution denouncing Russia's "aggression". The resolution called for an immediate unconditional withdrawal of military forces from the Ukraine.
[2]Just two die for: Apple reveals M1 Ultra chip in Mac Studio
[3]UK govt signs IT contracts 'without understanding' the needs
[4]Fujitsu: Dumping older workers will wipe out quarter of forecast profit
[5]Where are the (serious) Russian cyberattacks?
[6]AMD confirms Ryzen chips' stuttering performance on Windows 10, 11
Huawei's relationship with and services to Russia have been questioned in the past few weeks. Australian defence minister Peter Dutton has [7]stated he is aware of reports that Huawei "is providing support to Russia to keep their internet up and running" as it comes under attack from [8]hacktivists and other entities.
Huawei told The Reg :
Sir Andrew Cahn and Sir Ken Olisa brought considerable experience from the world of business and technology to Huawei UK's board of directors when they were appointed in 2015 and 2018 respectively.
Both have shown strong support for Huawei's commitment to the UK and have helped uphold the highest standards of corporate governance and we thank them for their invaluable guidance.
Cahn and Olisa aren’t the only ones (allegedly) stepping away from Huawei. Polish footballer Robert Lewandowski, who plays for Bayern Munich, also terminated his three year $5.45m commercial deal with the tech giant for the same reasons. ®
Updated to add
Olisa told The Register this morning: "I can confirm that I have resigned from the Board of Huawei (UK) and that the media reports of my departure are correct. These are difficult times for all multinationals and I don't intend to exacerbate the situation by making any further comments on this matter."
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YinaWoRKGtB@ItTa2AqzMQAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/08/apple_m1_ultra_studio/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/08/uk_government_it_contracts/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/09/fujitsu_profit_warning/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/09/where_are_the_russian_cyberattacks/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/08/amd_stutter/
[7] https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/minister/peter-dutton/transcripts/interview-david-bevan-abc-radio-adelaide
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/28/tech_response_to_ukraine/
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Thank you for your service. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Must be quite a sight, these "Sirs" kowtowing to the chinese.
Re: Must be quite a sight, these "Sirs" kowtowing to the chinese.
Isn't this war great at getting the xenophobia out into the open?
Re: Thank you for your service. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
That's an entirely fair comment, not sure why the downvotes.
A couple of guys who get a small revenue stream (in their terms - probably a large amount to the rest of us) for doing bugger all as non-executive directors other than chat to their cronies have made a gesture.They won't notice any change in lifestyle and Huawei will be better off not having to pay them.
Almost all non-executive directorships are a scam according to a city lawyer cum venture capitalist associate of mine who is in the position of have a number of them with large PLCs. They're a way for the boards of multiple companies to collude to take more of the companies' revenue for themselves.
fakestream media
Got to this bit and stopped reading. Not sure what point you want to make but doing it in an unreferenced Trumpian rant is not the right way to go about it.
> The US is illegally occupying Syrian territory, illegally killing their citizens, illegally taking their oil
What on earth are you talking about? Illegal according to who, exactly - Assad? One of a small number of people I genuinely wouldn't piss on if they were on fire. I think there are 900 US troops left in Syria, the odds of that number taking anything more than a defensive role in that ongoing disaster are zero.
There are plenty of reasons to be upset about Syria, and yes there is an element of hypocrisy and racism in the differing responses to a war in Europe (shock) and a war in the Middle Near East (again). But the impact the US and Europe have had on the Syrian conflict has been negligible(*). If you want to point a finger at a foreign power there, may I suggest you look no further than who Assad buys his arms from.
(*) unless you count spending the previous 20 years battle-hardening Sunni militias.
Upvoted. But then, there's the war in Yemen. And this one makes me much more uncomfortable about the current Western stance.
> racism
There certainly is some, but I have to object to Western-media-style shoehorning of identity politics, especially the racial aspect (since when Syrians aren't "white" anyway?).
In this aspect, virtually nowhere in the Western media do you hear about the not so-stellar historical relations between Ukrainians and Poles. There's some horrific stuff in relatively recent history, for example [1]the Volhyn massacre , which one of my elderly relatives was a survivor of. So there should be zero presumption of sympathy between the two nations, because even the ultra-nationalist nutjobs on both sides hate each other's guts.
What you see right now is mostly the effect of physical proximity. The war is happening right across the border.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia
Bullshit artist. Russian military and mercenaries have done plenty of civilian murdering in Syria though. It’s Russia that helped Assad kill “his” people.
Plenty of sources, but here’s one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/world/europe/russia-syria-mercenaries.html
Thank you for your service. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Both have shown strong support for Huawei's commitment to the UK and have helped uphold the highest standards of corporate governance and we thank them for their invaluable guidance.
That is as may be but that support has surely been demonstrably ineffective given the UK’s treatment of Huawei?