Huawei rules out cybersecurity risk management mechanism in cooperation with Chinese gov't

A top executive of Chinese technology giant Huawei said Thursday that the company has no cybersecurity risk management or mitigation mechanism in cooperation with the Chinese government.

The company only has such arrangements with governments of Britain, Canada, and Germany, said Catherine Chen, Huawei's board member and senior vice president, at a media roundtable in Brussels.

In both Britain and Canada, the mechanisms are led by the respective government, she said, adding that "verifications are done with third parties" in Canada.

Chen noted a dedicated Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Center was established by the company in Britain in November 2010.

For some eight years, the center has been providing security evaluation for a range of Huawei products used in the British telecommunications market.

To ensure the independence of HCSEC's judges, the British government established the HCSEC Oversight Board in early 2014, which has published five detailed annual reports scrutinizing Huawei.

Britain's National Cyber Security Center, part of the British intelligence apparatus, represents the government in dealing with HCSEC and with Huawei more generally on technical security matters, according to the latest report of the oversight board published in March.

Chen said the cybersecurity risk management model in Germany is different from the aforementioned ones.

"We have a testing center established in Germany," she said, adding that while the mechanisms in Canada and Britain focus on Huawei only, "Germany wants to apply the uniform or unified standards to all vendors, all players alike."

'Logic is missing'

Chen said Huawei has signed over 50 5G commercial contracts across the world. Twenty-eight of these were signed in Europe.

She described ongoing discussions in Europe around the security of 5G networks as rational with a clear focus on security. This contrasts with the narrative in the US, where "logic is missing," as Washington is focusing solely on the location of the vendor's headquarters, she said.

Huawei was established in southern China and is still headquartered there, but it has set up numerous significant research and development facilities around the world, including many in the west, which all contribute to Huawei's products and services.

The company's main competitors are northern Europe-headquartered Ericsson and Nokia, which have joint ventures with Chinese companies in China that churn out telecom equipment sold widely in and outside China, she said.

Therefore it defies logic to say that Huawei's products are Chinese and its competitors' products are not Chinese, she said.

She acknowledged that Ericsson and Nokia have recently secured 5G contracts for core network equipment from China's leading state-owned carrier China Mobile. Answering a question, she stressed that simply because Ericsson and Nokia were treated nicely in China, Huawei would not expect to receive contracts from Europe.

Huawei's leading position in the market is the result of its quality products offered at competitive prices, and that is what ultimately matters in a market economy -- not top-down political decisions, Chen argued.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei touched on the same subject on June 24 in an interview with the Financial Times.

"During recent bidding for the core network launched by China Mobile, about 44 percent of the market share went to Ericsson and Nokia, while we got a little over 50 percent. The West is most concerned about the core network when it comes to cyber security. China is open in this area, so it allows western companies to have such a large market share in the core network. This also shows that China trusts them," Ren said according to a transcript made available by Huawei.