According to a Chinese official, the United States does not have any proof on the spying allegations. Furthermore, the Beijing Government intends to publish a list of so-called "unreliable" foreign companies that would "hurt the interests" of companies in China.
It began in December with the rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump would be signing an executive order to ban the use of Huawei and ZTE equipment in the U.S. following the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. Use of the former's tech was actually banned in the Government back in August of last year, and the U.S. additionally filed a fraud case against the Chinese multinational back in January.
First the company's founder stepped in stating that his firm does not spy for the Chinese Government, then Germany's BDI industry group opined that proof should be shown for these allegations. Then, Huawei's rotating chairman, Guo Ping, said at Mobile World Congress 2019 that the multinational telecom and consumer electronics firm "has not and will never plant backdoors."
In addition to the U.S., there is a possibility that the UK would not use Huawei equipment in the deployment of its 5G networks, with GCHQ's Dr Ian Levy calling the firm's security "very, very shoddy."
Responding to these allegations, Huawei then sued the U.S. Government over the failure to "produce any evidence to support its restrictions on Huawei products."
In mid-May, Google announced it would cut off Huawei support of its various services, followed by German chip manufacturer Infineon, followed then by ARM, and allegedly Intel, Broadcom, and Qualcomm.
Later, the U.S. decided to temporarily lift its imposed ban - for 90 days -, though Huawei laptops have disappeared from the Microsoft Store, and the the SD Association decided to drop support for the Chinese firm - a decision later reversed. For its part, Huawei asked the court to speed up its decision on the U.S. ban.
All this brings us to today, when Mu Degui, Member of the standing committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Guizhou Provincial Committee, DG of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Guizhou Provincial Publicity department, talking to The Economic Times said:
"I don't know where they got the information that our chips are not secure. [...]
they [the United States] don't have the evidence at all.”
He further went on to state that "we know that after the incident of Edward Snowden, the United States is not safe at all.", and that China "doesn’t have any kind of requirement from companies to share data with the government."
There is however another aspect to take into account, which is China's National Intelligence Law (NIL), which came into effect on June 27, 2017. According to an (unofficial) translation from China Law Translate, the law's Article 7 states that:
"All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of."
Article 8, for its part, states:
"National intelligence efforts shall be conducted in accordance with law, shall respect and protect human rights, and shall preserve the lawful rights and interests of individuals and organizations."
Adding to the statement above, Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng stated that the country is preparing a list of "unreliable" foreign companies and individuals that are deemed to have damaged the interests of Chinese firms by violating contractual obligations, market rules, or engaging in "discriminatory measures".
All these, which could affect the Chinese business rights and interests and national security according to Feng, are no doubt the cause of the measures which the Beijing Government is set to reveal "in the near future".
Source: Economic Times, The New York Times
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