The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has concluded in an as yet unpublished finding that risks from using Huawei equipment in the country’s future 5G networks are manageable, according to a report by the Financial Times.
China Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang
said on Monday that China expects the United Kingdom will maintain its openness
and work with China to bring more benefits to the people of the two countries.
The report, citing one person familiar with the
issue, said the conclusion from the UK, a country that is a member of the Five
Eyes intelligence sharing network, would “carry great weight” with
other European leaders.
“Other nations can make the argument that
if the British are confident of mitigation against national security threats,
then they can also reassure their public and the US administration that they
are acting in a prudent manner in continuing to allow their telecommunications
service providers to use Chinese components as long as they take the kinds of
precautions recommended by the British,” the person said, according to the
report.
On Friday, Alex Younger, head of MI6, the UK
agency that handles foreign intelligence and operations, said the country might
take a more moderate stance on Huawei than the US, explaining the issue was too
complex to simply ban the company, the report said.
It was “a more complicated issue than in or
out” and countries had “a sovereign right to work through the answer
to all of this”, Younger said.
In addition, in a recent article for the
Financial Times, Robert Hannigan, former head of the UK intelligence agency
GCHQ, also said that NCSC had never found evidence of Chinese state
cyberactivity through Huawei and it makes no sense to assert any Chinese
technology in any part of a 5G network represents an unacceptable risk.
The Financial Times report, citing one person
familiar with the issue, said the UK government is expected to release a review
report on the country’s telecom infrastructure in the spring to give suggestions
on how to handle any threats generated by Huawei to 5G networks.
A diversity of suppliers and partial
restrictions of areas of the 5G network might be suggested by the government,
according to the person.
On Feb 13, Xu Zhijun, one
of Huawei’s three rotating chairmen, said in a media briefing at the company’s
Shenzhen headquarters that the United States is launching a “coordinated,
tactical geopolitical campaign” against the Chinese company, China Daily
previously reported.
Cybersecurity and 5G technologies are two
different issues, Xu said, for Huawei’s cooperation with governments and
industry to promote the construction of cybersecurity standards is not
inconsistent with researching and developing 5G technologies and providing them
to the world, according to a wallstreetcn.com report.
Xu added that Huawei would spend initial funds
of more than $2 billion over the next five years to boost cybersecurity for its
equipment and the future investment is temporarily immeasurable.
In January, Wang Yi, Chinese State councilor and
foreign minister, said when visiting Europe that some countries’ attempts to
discredit and contain Chinese high-tech companies like Huawei by leveraging
their state power are “unfair and immoral”, according to a report by
Xinhua.
Wang said every country has the right to
safeguard information security, but it is wrong to damage or even stifle the
legitimate operation of enterprises under the pretext of security.
Resources; FT, China Daily