On January 31, senior advocate (Supreme Court) and Rajya Sabha MP Mahesh Jethmalani hinted at a BBC-China-Congress nexus. In a tweet, he said, “Why is BBC so anti-India? Because it needs money desperately enough to take it from Chinese state-linked Huawei and pursue the latter’s agenda (BBC a fellow traveller, Comrade Jairam?). It’s a simple cash-for-propaganda deal. BBC is up for sale.”
Mahesh Jethmalani was referring to a report from August 2022 that pointed out that despite the ban on Chinese company Huawei over security issues in the United States and the United Kingdom, BBC was still getting ads from it.
In August 2022, The Spectator published a report suggesting that BBC was taking money from Huawei. Notably, Huawei was sanctioned by the US in 2019 and the UK barred the company from the 5G network in 2020 citing security issues. Later, it was also revealed that Huawei had provided support to the Chinese government in creating a surveillance system targeting Uyghur Muslims. The report pointed towards the paid adverts by Huawei about ‘The new frontier of education: How can we bridge the education gap and bring bright young minds into the digital future?’ Notably, the content was not available in the UK. It was made by StoryWorks, the paid content team of BBC.
In a statement, BBC’s spokesperson said that the company was funded via advertisements outside the UK which allows them to invest in their “world-class journalism and bring it to a global audience”.
Mahesh Jethmalani hit out Congress leader for his alleged Huawei links
Earlier, Mahesh Jethmalani hit out at Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and urged him to come clean about his Huawei connections. In a tweet, Jethmalani said, “Since 2005, Jairam Ramesh has been lobbying for Chinese telecom co Huawei’s activities in India (see below excerpts from his book). Huawei has been banned in several countries as a security threat. Jairam now questions GOIs China stand. It behoves him to disclose his Huawei links.”
He also accused Jairam of sabotaging vital projects when he served as the Environment Minister in the UPA government. Jethmalani had called Ramesh a “mouthpiece of Chinese disinformation” in an earlier tweet.
Huewai’s surveillance tech for the Chinese government to target Uyghur Muslims
In 2021, IPVM, a video surveillance research group along with Washington Post and BBC reported that Chinese company Huawei had filed for a patent for its Artificial Intelligence technology capable of tracking Uyghur Muslims. Despite the reports, BBC continued to run ads of BBC on its international platform(s).