Huawei Fires Employee Arrested in Poland on Spying Charges

The Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has fired an employee who was arrested in Poland on charges of spying for the Chinese government, saying in a statement late Saturday that the worker had brought "disrepute” to the company.

Huawei said that the alleged actions that the employee, Wang Weijing, had been accused of had nothing to do with the company.

“In accordance with the terms and conditions of Huawei’s labor contract, we have made this decision because the incident in question has brought Huawei into disrepute,” a company spokesman, Joe Kelly, said.

The Polish authorities announced the arrests of Mr. Wang and a Polish telecommunications worker on Friday. That move came at a time of growing concern among the United States and its allies about Chinese technology suppliers, and after the December arrest in Canada of Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder.

On Dec. 1, Meng Wangzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada at the request of the United States. American investigators have accused her of deceiving financial institutions about Huawei’s business in Iran, causing them to inadvertently violate United States sanctions. The Canadian legal authorities have not yet decided whether Ms. Meng will be extradited to the United States.

Poland is Huawei’s headquarters for Central and Eastern Europe and the Nordic region.

A LinkedIn profile for Mr. Wang showed he has been employed by Huawei’s Polish division since 2011 and previously served as attaché to the Chinese general consul in Gdansk from 2006 to 2011, according to Reuters.

Europe has been an important market for Huawei. Largely shut out of the United States, the company has found many eager customers in Europe, both for its smartphones and for its telecommunications equipment.

As cellular providers around the world prepare to build networks using fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless technology, Huawei has tested new equipment with a number of major European carriers.