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China blasts ‘slander’ against Huawei: report
BRUSSELS, Jan 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – China’s envoy to the EU on Monday said
Huawei was the victim of slander as western governments try to hamper the
Chinese telecommunications giant’s effort to deploy its technology worldwide.
“It is not helpful to make slander, discrimination, pressure, coercion or
speculation against anyone else,” Ambassador Zhang Ming said in an interview
with the Financial Times.
“Now someone is sparing no effort to fabricate a security story about
Huawei,” he said.
Beijing’s criticism follows similar words by Foreign Minister Wang Yi who
said the campaign against Huawei was “unfair and immoral”.
The United States, France and other western nations have voiced fears that
using Huawei base stations and other gear could give Beijing access to
critical network infrastructure worldwide, possibly allowing it to spy on
foreign governments.
In an interview with Bloomberg, European Commission Vice-President Andrus
Ansip said the EU was especially worried given China’s National Intelligence
Law, passed in 2017.
This law compels companies and individual citizens to actively assist
China’s spy organisations in investigations.
“When it’s written in the law, then we have to understand those risks are
higher. We cannot be naive anymore,” Ansip told Bloomberg.
The worries circle around 5G technology, in which Huawei has invested
billions of dollars, competing mainly against Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s
Nokia.
The United States, Britain and other countries have warned of potential
Huawei security risks, not least since its founder Ren Zhengfei is a former
People’s Liberation Army engineer.
Huawei officials bristled at the claims, and chairman Liang Hua warned this
week that it would pull out of partnerships in countries where it is not
welcome.
“We do not pose a threat to a future digital society,” Liang said at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.
Adding to the tensions, Canadian police arrested in December Huawei’s chief
financial officer Meng Wanzhou — a daughter of the company’s founder — on a
US warrant over suspected Iran sanctions violations.
China on Wednesday accused Washington of “bullying behaviour” after US
authorities confirmed plans to seek Meng’s extradition.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1615 hrs