<![CDATA[Huawei will commit to 'no-spy agreements' to win government contracts, chairman says amid US pressure on allies over 5G fears]>
Huawei Technologies is prepared to include provisions in its government contracts not to facilitate "back door" espionage by Beijing, the chairman of the Chinese telecommunications giant said on Tuesday.
"We are willing to sign no-spy agreements with governments, including the UK government, to commit ourselves to making our equipment meet the no-spy, no-back-doors standard," Liang Hua said at a company-sponsored business conference in London.
Washington, which has already banned the use of Huawei devices by its own governmental agencies, claims that the company is a national security risk because it might accede to demands from Beijing to allow access to networks and private users' data.
Huawei's founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, has vociferously pushed back against accusations that the company has installed back doors, and, according to Tim Watkins, Huawei's vice-president for western Europe, has vowed to close the company should the Chinese government insist that it hand over user data.
"[Ren] has made it very clear that he has never been asked to hand over any customer data or any information," Watkins told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday.
"He's made it very clear ... if he was asked, that he would refuse and if it was attempted to be forced he would shut the company down."
Huawei Technologies chairman Liang Hua, left, in February. Photo: The Canadian Press via AP
Such defences have fallen on deaf ears in Washington, with one senior state department official telling lawmakers on Tuesday that, under China's ruling Communist Party, no Chinese company has the agency to resist orders from central government, in part because there is no independent judiciary through which appeals can be issued.
"No company can object and say 'I don't want to follow the mandate of Xi Jinping,'" Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary of state for cyber and international communications and information policy, said at a US Senate hearing on the national security implications of 5G technology.
"It's one-party state, Communist rule and they have to follow the dictates of that government," said Strayer.
As Washington seeks to convince partners to follow suit in its campaign against the telecommunications company, Strayer said that the US would reconsider its security relationships with those countries that decide to enter contracts with Chinese vendors such as Huawei.
Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo implored the British government to refuse Huawei participation in the construction of its 5G network.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at London Stansted Airport on Thursday, after meeting with British officials. Photo: Pool via Reuters
"The US has an obligation to ensure the places where we operate " places where US information is, places where we have national security risks " that they operate within trusted networks and that is what we will do," Pompeo said in London following talks with UK prime minister Theresa May and foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt.
Strayer confirmed that while no American company is currently building the radio component of 5G technology, the four main carriers in the US " AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile " had all committed to rejecting Huawei as they construct their 5G networks.
Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said at Tuesday's hearing that the threat of cyber espionage and attacks from China against a country relying on telecoms equipment from Chinese companies like Huawei or ZTE Corp could be three-pronged.
First, Krebs said, "the quality of the engineering is not great, and so there are a number of vulnerabilities that are left open on the box, so China and other capable actors - Russia, Iran, North Korea - could exploit the vulnerabilities".
The second threat, he said, was the lack of oversight concerning Huawei's roll-out of updates.
"The third is, the way they manage this equipment tends to be by shipping out Chinese nationals to the host country for hands-on [maintenance], so you have a physical, insider threat as well," he added.
The US has prohibited government departments and government contractors from using Huawei since last August when US President Donald Trump signed the Defence Authorisation Act into law.
Huawei has launched a lawsuit against the US government to protest the federal ban, and is also suing the Canadian government over its arrest of chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is facing extradition at the behest of the US government.
In addition to its case against Meng, whom the US has accused of committing wire fraud to circumvent the sanctions around Iran, the Justice Department has also filed indictments against Huawei for alleged theft of trade secrets from T-mobile.
Robert Strayer of the US State Department testifying at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday. Photo: Bloomberg
Several major US universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford and the University of California at San Diego, have also recently cut ties with Huawei.
The University of Illinois said last month that it would no longer accept grants or contracts from the firm or any of its subsidiaries.
Chairing Tuesday's hearing, at which a number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concern about the national security implications of Huawei's participation in building 5G networks around the world, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said that congressional scrutiny was "not about overseeing Huawei, it's about overseeing China".
"And if I were a Nato member, I would get a copy of this hearing and listen to it," he added. "I haven't seen bipartisanship like this in a long time."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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