Ren Zhengfei, the founder and CEO of Huawei, states that his company has never spyed for the Chinese government and will never do so. Ren declared this during a rare public performance after his daughter’s arrest in Canada, reports The Wall Street Journal.
“There are no laws that require a company in China to install mandatory back doors,” said the top executive. This refers to the accusation that the company had given a key to civil servants to gain access to data on devices and networks. “I would never personally harm my customers or myself, and my company would not respond to such requests.”
The United States has concerns about Huawei’s ties with the Chinese government. The country is afraid that the company’s telecommunications equipment will be misused by Beijing to spy. The country had already asked friendly countries to exclude the company from their 5G connectivity. Several countries have responded to this.
Huawei has always denied the accusations, and is now doing so again. What exactly Ren or the company would do to turn down requests from the Chinese government has not been disclosed. However, all companies doing business in China are required by law to provide customer data to the government in matters related to national security. Threats to national security have a broad definition in the country, and can also revolve around critical statements against the Communist Party.
Abducted daughter
Ren also spoke about his daughter, Huawei-CFO Meng Wanzhou. Meng was arrested in December during a transit from Hong Kong to Mexico, via Vancouver. The arrest was made at the request of the United States. The CFO is accused by the U.S. of fraud.
Ren said he missed his daughter, but was optimistic that it would celebrate justice.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.