Monitor | If Huawei is blameless, it should clear its name
It's no surprise suspicions lurk around the telecommunications firm, given its opaque operations and an atmosphere of international mistrust
Last month one western media report dubbed Shenzhen-based technology giant Huawei "Who are we?"
The joke was a poor one, but it made a serious point. Although Huawei recorded sales of US$16.3 billion in the first half of this year, surpassing Swedish behemoth Ericsson to become the world's leading provider of telecommunications equipment, to outsiders it appears a closed book.
As a private unlisted company, little is known about Huawei's financing, governance or ownership.
Such opacity breeds dark suspicions. This week the intelligence committee of the US House of Representatives wrapped up an 11-month investigation into Huawei and fellow Chinese communications equipment company ZTE by concluding that the two companies "cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States".
In Huawei's case the committee criticised the company's unco-operative attitude and said it did not adequately explain its relationship with the Chinese government and that it "failed to provide thorough information about its corporate structure, history, ownership, operations, financial arrangements, or management".
As a result, the committee said Huawei should be barred from government contracts and from making acquisitions in the US, and called on American corporations not to do business with the company.
Huawei immediately rejected the findings, protesting that it had co-operated fully with the committee, and that legions of satisfied customers could attest the security of its products.