https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/a3hied/huawei_de... Keep in mind that US sanctions against foreign companies doing business with Iran are opposed by: The United Nations International Court of Justice, which ordered the US to withdraw sanctions, to which the US responded by pulling out of international agreements. The European Union, which has attempted to block its companies from complying with US sanctio…
No, it isn't. They're only equivalent if the American executive's company in question is selling, say, Huawei networking equipment (assuming it is banned; I don't know if it's the case) to businesses in Taiwan -- probably under an arrangement where the intention to sell to Taiwan was never made clear and likely actively concealed.
That's circumvention of export controls and likely fraud at the expense of the sanctioning country -- an entirely different beast than merely passive business between the sanctioned and a separate third-party.
>will undoubtedly cause a major international crisis.
It will, but it has less to do with any escalation by the US than it does with China's own, well, unique political environment. If a similar case occurred to CFO of e.g. Yandex, I have a hard time seeing Russians/Russia reacting nearly as strongly as I expect Chinese/China to.