Pompeo imposes visa restrictions on Huawei, other Chinese tech companies

Citing human rights abuses, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the U.S. will impose visa restrictions on Chinese technology firms, including telecom giant Huawei.

“State Department will impose visa restrictions on certain employees of Chinese tech companies like Huawei, that provide material support to regimes engaging in human rights violations and abuses globally,” Pompeo said at a press briefing.

Pompeo described Huawei as “an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state that censors political dissidents and enables mass internment camps in Xinjiang and the indentured servitude of its population shipped all over China.”

He did not say which employees would be denied visas or how many people would be affected.

The move comes a day after President Donald Trump announced he would sign a bill and an executive order punishing China for steps that are widely seen as an attempt to crush democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.