Huawei Denies Espionage Claims

Huawei's Managing Director, Guo Fulin, addressed and replied to accusations launched by Australian newspaper “The Weekend Australian,” which stated that several of Huawei's new employees in Australia had Government ties with China's People's Liberation Army. The newspaper also added that the company was under ASIO's (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) investigations at the moment, for possible espionage charges against some of its employees.

In a letter to the newspaper, Mr. Fulin wrote, “The articles falsely accuse Huawei of engaging in espionage activities and offer no proof to support this charge […] We are not aware of any investigation. However, we can be certain that any review would find the allegations that are the focus of your articles to be baseless.”

Mr. Fulin does not disregard any relations with ASIO, but goes to state that these encounters have been made only to display and present activity reports, as many other externally owned companies do the same.

The newspaper seems to have severely exaggerated in its accusations, since many developments in this story have been inflated or reported from a different and non-realistic point of view.

The whole scandal started when Huawei fired several native Australian employees, replacing them with Chinese workforce (because it's cheaper). It is not known if any of these employees went to ASIO to report any suspicious activity on behalf of Huawei, or if they simply went to the newspaper with some bogus facts. For sure is the fact that, from Huawei's initial 120 Australian employees, the majority of them were fired.

Soon after this event, the article was printed in the newspaper. For Huawei, this was not the first time it faced this kind of allegations, formerly being falsely accused of espionage in countries like India, Great Britain and the USA.

The problem with Huawei is the fact that its owner and founder was a former People's Liberation Army officer, placing it on many internal security agencies' security-threat lists around the world. This preconception and its dark past have even ruined good business opportunities, as a partnership with Sigtel Optus and an acquisition of US-based 3Com have failed due to internal security concerns from local Government officials.