I had a friend at Huawei about a year ago tell me how they had lawyers come in and prep them on the exact procedures they should follow in the event of an FBI raid. This was well before I heard anything in the news about China, Huawei, etc tensions.
Knowing this, I personally give quite a bit of weight to any accusation against the company. I have a hard time justifying in my mind that a company operating legitimately in the US would prep their employees on how to respond during an FBI raid.
Actually instructing employees how to interact with government officials is on its own a quite reasonable training. Unless they were instructed on destroying evidence, there is nothing wrong with that. I work at an American company, and we get annual trainings which also cover legal aspects. Most of them are of course just the standard trainings about proper legal and ethical behavior.
The friend referenced gave the strong impression that things did not appear above board. This was a late career individual and stated that they had never seen anything like it.
They didn't provide any details beyond that. It's possible that the individual had just never experienced any legal compliance training, but based on their role I certainly expect they had.
The Economist reported on the "techno-nationalism" driving fear of Huawei in their August 4, 2012 cover story. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2012/08/04/whos-afraid-of-... This has been a long time brewing, though there's been a significant uptick in recent months of worries about China, e.g., Bloomberg's October article where they made up lies about Supermicro.
It makes perfect sense to me that Huawei would prep its employees on how to deal with a raid, and being prepared for the police is not solely the action of the guilty. It tells us that Huawei is afraid of the FBI. It does not tell is that Huawei is afraid of the FBI because Huawei are bad guys.
Knowing this, I personally give quite a bit of weight to any accusation against the company. I have a hard time justifying in my mind that a company operating legitimately in the US would prep their employees on how to respond during an FBI raid.