China and Norway face off over ‘ridiculous’ claims Beijing is using Huawei to spy on Scandinavian host
- Chinese embassy in Oslo says Norway is working on a ‘hypothesis’
- Huawei denies ties to China beyond having its headquarters there
The Chinese embassy in Oslo hit back at Norwegian intelligence on Monday after the agency made “ridiculous” accusations that Beijing spied on its Scandinavian host.
“It’s ridiculous for the intelligence service of a country to make a security assessment and attack China with a hypothesis,” the embassy said.
The statement came after the Norwegian police intelligence agency PST, in its annual security evaluation, accused the Chinese government of stealing information from Norway’s cyber domain through technology provided by Huawei.
The embassy said Chinese law did not force companies to build “mandatory back doors” into networks.
Marie Benedicte Bjørnland, PST chief, said Chinese law compelled individuals and private companies such as Huawei to cooperate with Chinese authorities, Norwegian media reported.
“Everyone needs to pay attention to Huawei as a player in connection with the 5G network that will be built out,” Bjørnland said. “Huawei as a company has apparently tight connections to Chinese authorities”.
Justice Minister Tor Mikkel Wara announced measures to reduce the vulnerability of the Norwegian network.
The Norwegian coalition government will look at preventing Norway’s largest mobile operators – Telenor, Telia and Ice – from choosing equipment suppliers such as Huawei whose servers were deemed a threat to national security, he said. Both Telenor and Telia used Huawei’s mobile network systems for their 4G services.
If the logic of the PST stood, the Chinese embassy said, then it could also be said that China was exposed to threats from Norway because Norway has the capability and the will to use such technology.
Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of China’s state-run Global Times, called on the Norwegian intelligence service to exercise “self-respect”.
“The Norwegian market is like a mosquito to China. What technology does it have? Norwegian intelligence service, have some self-respect,” he wrote on Twitter.
Norway is not the only country to have voiced concerns about the involvement of Chinese telecom companies in its networks.
The United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan have blocked Huawei from taking part in development of their 5G telecoms networks for fear they may be left open to spying by China.
Recently, the European Union, Germany, its largest industrial power, and UK said they may exclude Huawei.
The Chinese company has denied allowing Chinese authorities access to its hardware, software and networks and pledged to open a cybersecurity centre in Brussels, Belgium, in March to demonstrate its commitment to Europe.
“Huawei will never give any countries’ authorities access to information,” Tore Larsen Orderløkken, security director for Huawei in Norway, told Norwegian newspaper DN last month.
“We have no ties to Chinese authorities apart from having headquarters in China,” he said.
