Cyber Security should not become a political issue: Eric Xu

Rotating Chairman of Huawei, Eric Xu has recently questioned the intention of the USA behind raising cyber security concerns against Huawei. Xu said that Huawei doesn’t have several base stations in the US that are being used by telecom operators, but those are very small rural telecom operators. The US is essentially not using Huawei’s equipment in a massive scale, so the allegation of security threat is quite baseless in his opinion. He remarks that cyber security is no longer a technical issue, rather a political or ideological issue. Because, technical issues can always be resolved through the right solutions.

About the link between Huawei and the Chinese government, Eric Xu said, “As a private Chinese company, Huawei falls under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government, so there must be some kind of link. Mr. Ren also mentioned that as a privately owned enterprise in China, if we want to pursue commercial success, we must follow our own business ethics. We will never harm the interests of any customer or nation. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already clarified that no law in China requires companies to install mandatory backdoors in their equipment. Up until now, Huawei has never received any such requests.”

Xu continued, “We have made a lot of efforts in order for relevant stakeholders in the UK, Canada, Germany, and other European countries to understand this fact. After so many years, we don’t have the things that some people might believe would be there. The Chinese government definitely cannot act on behalf of Huawei.”

Regarding the issues of US-China trade dispute and the detention of CFO Meng Wanzhou, Eric Xu said, “It has always been Huawei’s position that we do not want to become one of the items on the negotiation agenda between China and the US. Because Huawei is too small compared with China and the United States. Definitely the national interests of two big powers cannot be affected because of one single company. Therefore, our position is very clear. Huawei follows all applicable laws and regulations of the countries where we operate, including export control laws from the United Nations, United States, and European Union. We would resort to legal means to address this situation.”

Huawei has been investing very heavily in R&D over the years for things that would not be expected. Xu said, “At this point of time, the industry does not have a complete standard for 5G yet. And of course, in this process, Huawei has been making our own proposals along the way. In order to make 5G more secure than previous generations of technologies, 2G, 3G, and 4G, the whole industry has come together, making tremendous efforts.”

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Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Its aim is to enrich life and improve efficiency through a better-connected world. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. Huawei’s 180,000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Its innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries, serving over one-third of the world’s population.