US lawmakers slam Optica Foundation for receiving funds from Huawei: Report

US lawmakers are now showing their rage toward the Washington-based Optica Foundation, which secretly accepted funds from Huawei. Two senior US legislators recently criticized the respective company for putting national security at stake.

The story began when a report mentioned how Huawei has secretly funded the Research Foundation. Despite being blacklisted from the US, the Chinese OEM backed a research competition for years, that awarded millions via the Optica Groups.

On this headline, both Huawei and Optica kept their clean intentions on the table. The former said it’s a proud moment for them to be a part of the Foundation’s vital activity and that the contribution is already visible on the firm’s official site.

Huawei even added that this competition aims to boost global research and academic communication. Whereas, the latter mentioned that they never hid any contributor from their official listing and still it’s their choice if they wish to remain anonymous.

US criticizes Optica Foundation (Image Credits: Huawei)

Criticism:

But the U.S. lawmakers didn’t find this practice good from any angle and slammed the foundation for accepting funds from Huawei. The top two Republican and Democrat on the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology wrote a letter to the CEO of Optica – Elizabeth Rogan.

The letter reads that Optica’s decision to take money from the Chinese company and give it to other parties just raises the risk and transparency of the research security. Also, keeping the source of funding anonymous shows disrespect for US laws.

Further inputs reveal that the U.S. Republican Committee sent around nine questions to Elizabeth Rogan related to donations and other types of ties that the Optica Foundation has/had with Huawei and the Chinese firms in the past few years.

The two senior lawmakers – Frank Lucas and Zoe Lofgren say:

“Optica’s failure to disclose Huawei’s involvement showed either deep ignorance of years of policymaking around research security or was a willful strategy to launder funds from Huawei to anonymously bolster the Optica Foundation’s reputation and finances.”

[Source – Bloomberg]