The Mobile World Conference was greeted with a witty and humorous joke during Huawei’s keynote speech. “There has never been more interest in Huawei,” Guo Ping, Rotating Chairman of Huawei told delegates at the MWC. “We must be doing something right!”
The company used their keynote to establish its security for customer data privacy. The world’s largest provider of telecommunication equipment is looking to establish themselves and provide devices for the upcoming super-fast and secure 5G network. And all of this, amid rising concerns against Chinese telecom equipment makers.
Huawei has been under heavy scrutiny,specially from the US, for its alleged ties with the Chinese Government. Concerns ranges from data protection to privacy breach in general, of its consumers. They were accused of intellectual property theft and facilitating Chinese state espionage operations. All of this has ultimately resulted in Huawei being banned by the US, Australia and New Zealand from providing their products for their upcoming 5G networks. Both Canada and UK have also expressed their concerns, though the latter recently took a more neutral stance.
Robert Strayer, the US State Department’s top cyber official, made some strong remarks regarding the scandal earlier this month. “A country that uses data in the way China has – to surveil its citizens, to set up credit scores and to imprison more than 1 million people for their ethnic and religious background – should give us pause about the way that country might use data in the future,” Strayer said, according to The Washington Post. “It would be naive to think that country, [given] the influence it has over its companies, would act in ways that would treat our citizens better than it treats its own citizens.”
On Tuesday morning however, Huawei Chairman Guo reiterated his company’s position that it has never and would never allow any country to spy through its equipment. “Here, let me say this as clear as possible, Huawei has not and will never plant backdoors. And we will never allow anyone to do so in our equipment. We take this responsibility very seriously,” Guo said.
Guo claimed that Huawei is the first company who can deploy 5G networks at a large scale, describing the Huawei kit as “powerful, simple and intelligent” next-gen network kit.
He further iterates that the US security accusations on their 5G network contains no evidence before ironically mentioning how the US Cloud Act allows entities to access data across borders.
“Let experts decide whether networks are safe or not,” he added, slyly referring to Donald Trump’s lack of experience in the mobile network industry and his latest tweets regarding the 5G scandal. He goes on to even show his shared opinion with the US president that “the U.S. needs powerful, faster and smarter 5G”.
“Government and the mobile operators should work together to agree what this assurance testing and certification rating for Europe will be,” said Guo, in response to the growing concerns exhibited by the European providers, mentioned earlier.
“So, for best technology and greater security, choose Huawei. Please choose Huawei, thank you,” he concluded, stating a firm stance against these allegations as the company targets its introduction into the new 5G network, worldwide.
