Huawei defends its track record in data security, saying US has no evidence to back up Chinese spying allegations

Huawei Technologies, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier, declared the US government has no evidence to support accusations that the company’s products can be used to spy for China, while reiterating that the firm “has not and will never plant back doors” to compromise the security of its products.

“There has never been more interest in Huawei. We must be doing something right,” Guo Ping, one of three rotating chairmen at the Shenzhen-based company, said at the start of his keynote speech on Tuesday at MWC Barcelona.

“Of course, the past few months have been a challenge for us. On one hand, our 5G solutions are widely recognised in the industry. On the other hand, there has been a lot of speculation about the security of our 5G solutions,” he said.

Guo’s comments at the world’s biggest exhibition for the mobile industry followed efforts by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei in recent media interviews to explain that the company will not share data with the Chinese government, that the arrest of his daughter Sabrina Meng Wanzhou in Canada in December was politically motivated, and that there was no way the US can crush Huawei.

The stakes are high for Huawei to make a strong impression at MWC Barcelona because it gets almost half of its more than US$100 billion in annual revenue from overseas markets. Europe, where the company has an estimated 30 per cent of the market, is also under threat because the US is putting pressure on European countries to block the Chinese company, citing national security concerns that Huawei has strenuously and repeatedly denied.