While trade negotiations between the United States and China are scheduled to take place in Washington on Wednesday,... the U.S. has slammed China's telecoms giant Huawei with 13 criminal counts.
Unsurprisingly,... Beijing has reacted furiously,... insisting the move is politically motivated.
Kim Hyo-sun reports.
The U.S. has announced sweeping charges against China's Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou,... ahead of crunch trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing to end their prolonged trade war.
Washington hammered the Chinese telecommunications company with 13 criminal counts including bank and wire fraud,... as well as trying to steal trade secrets from its German rival T-Mobile.
The U.S. Justice Department accuses Huawei of violation U.S. sanctions against Iran by doing business with Tehran through a subsidiary it tried to hide.

"There are additional troubling allegations in the indictment as well including that Huawei lied to the federal government and attempted to obstruct justice by concealing and destroying evidence and by moving potential government witnesses back to China."

China strongly opposed the move,... urging Washington to stop suppressing Chinese companies.

"It's been some time since the U.S. started to use its state power to smear and suppress certain Chinese enterprises in an attempt to throttle their legitimate operations. Their intentions are strongly political and manipulative."

Beijing's industry ministry also insists the Huawei indictments are unfair and immoral.

"Just as the foreign ministry said, with no evidence, they're using their state power to discredit and attack designated companies. This sort of behavior is unfair and immoral."

Amid the ongoing tensions,... China's trade delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He is now in Washington for high-level trade talks beginning Wednesday local time.
Many are concerned the Huawei indictments could complicate the trade talks,... but U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is trying to separate the Huawei case with the trade talks,... saying he expects to see significant progress this week.
Kim Hyo-sun, Arirang News.