Huawei has signed a strategic partnership with China Post, a move believed to be not unrelated to the Chinese telecoms equipment maker's statement at the end of last month that it was reviewing its dealings with FedEx.
This followed claims that the US package delivery company had diverted two parcels destined for Huawei addresses in Asia to the US and attempted to divert two others, without detailed explanation.
Chinese media reported that in a statement released via a WeChat post, China's state postal group said it was forming a new “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Huawei which will see the two parties deepening their co-operation in finance, technology innovation, logistics, and talent cultivation.
Huawei’s co-chairman Eric Xu and China Post chairman Liu Aili were present at the recently-held agreement signing ceremony.
The statement added: “China Post shoulders the responsibility as a member of China’s ‘national team’ in the industry and is dedicated to providing comprehensive and diverse services to clients.” It is unclear whether this includes courier services.
Returning to the FedEx episode, a report by Reuters at the time quoted a Huawei spokesman, Joe Kelly, who said: “The recent experiences where important commercial documents sent via FedEx were not delivered to their destination, and instead were either diverted to, or were requested to be diverted to, FedEx in the United States, undermines our confidence.”
He added: “We will now have to review our logistics and document delivery support requirements as a direct result of these incidents.”
Responding to questions from CEP-Research about the 'diverted' parcels, a FedEx spokeswoman said: “We regret that this isolated number of Huawei packages were inadvertently misrouted and confirm that they are in the process of being returned to the shippers. The scans on the packages will show that we worked to return the packages to our customers as soon as possible.”
“This instance is not indicative of the exceptional service our 450,000 team members provide on a daily basis around the world as they work continuously to live up to each of our customer’s expectations.” No specific reasons have been disclosed as to why the packages were “misrouted.”
Huawei's remarks that it was re-evaluating its co-operation with FedEx led to the Chinese authorities launching a probe into FedEx's "wrongful delivery of packages," to the backdrop of an escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing.
The Trump administration has raised tariffs from 10% to 25% percent on $200 billion of Chinese imports while China has retaliated by targeting $60 billion worth of US agricultural exports and putting a stop to purchases of American soybeans.
Last month, the US Commerce Department also placed Huawei and around 70 of its affiliates on a so-called ‘Entity List’ or trade ‘blacklist’, preventing Huawei buying certain items from US companies without US government approval.
State news agency Xinhua reported that the government would investigate whether FedEx had damaged the interests of Chinese customers.
In response, FedEx issued a statement saying: “FedEx values our business in China. Our relationship with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and our relationships with all of our customers in China are important to us. FedEx holds itself to a very high standard of service. FedEx will fully cooperate with any regulatory investigation into how we serve our customers.”
