Beijing Feared Meng Wanzhou Would Cooperate in New York—and Mounted a Coercive Campaign to Bring Her Home. Huawei’s Racketeering Trial Starts Without Her

BROOKLYN, New York — “Theft, lies, cover-up.”

That was how Justice Department lawyer Taylor Stout opened the United States government’s criminal case against Huawei Technologies, alleging that the Chinese telecommunications giant spent two decades stealing American technology, deceiving global banks and concealing its business with Iran’s repressive regime.

The government’s first witness took the jury into the prosecution’s claim that Huawei assisted Iran’s domestic-surveillance machinery.