China's Huawei to sell stake in undersea-cable unit

Shanghai: Huawei will sell its majority share in a submarine cable unit, the stake's buyer announced Monday, amid a US-led drive to isolate the Chinese telecom giant from global information networks over spying fears.

US President Donald Trump has attacked Huawei in recent months, urging allies to boycott its products and blacklisting the Chinese firm from buying some US software.

Undersea cables are vital to global internet traffic.

The 51 per cent stake in Huawei Marine Networks will be bought by Hengtong Optic-Electric, an optical-cable manufacturer based in eastern China's Jiangsu province, according to a filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Huawei Marine Networks is a joint venture between Huawei and UK-based undersea cable firm Global Marine Systems.

Huawei Marine claims on its website to be involved in around 90 projects, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, totalling more than 50,000 kilometres (30,000 miles) of undersea cables. Washington suspects that Huawei, which was founded by former People's Liberation Army (PLA) engineer Ren Zhengfei, has ties to China's military and thus poses a security threat.