Regime had help from a Chinese government-owned company also

Jul 23, 2019 09:06 GMT  ·  By

North Korea has a cellphone network called Koryolink, which lets the government spy with ease on its users. That’s not really surprising, but it turns out that China and Huawei are responsible for building that network, according to newly released documents.

Huawei might be in hot water right now with The United States, for numerous reasons. Some would say that the main reason for their problem is the fact that they managed to beat the US at building the next-gen 5G networks and protocols. Another accusation was that the company sold technology to countries that were under embargo, such as Iran.

It was also alleged that Huawei is actually working with the Chinese government and providing them with access to their terminals and technology. This would feel normal in China, but Huawei smartphones are also available in pretty much the rest of the world. Governments were fearful that China could be using Huawei phones to spy on them, and many forbid their government employees and institutions from using Huawei technology.

Building the network for a dictatorial regime doesn’t look good

Huawei, along with the Chinese government, has been working tirelessly to fix its international reputation, and it seemed to be working. Trump announced that Huawei would be able to do business with American companies once more, which would help them remain competitive.

But now, documents published by The Washington Post and 38 North revealed that the Chinese Government and Huawei help North Korean by building the Koryolink cellular network. Kim Jong Il, the father of current dictator Kim Jong Un, visited the Huawei headquarters back in 2008, and soon after that company, along with the government-owned Panda International Information Technology, shipped all the necessary technology in North Korea for Koryolink.

As you can imagine, Koryolink is extremely restrictive, as the people of North Korea, who are wealthy enough to have a phone, can access the Internet or make international calls. The control goes much further as the North Korean government can intercept basically anything with ease, including texts. To make matter’s worse, Koryolink government users are safe behind an encryption curtain.

Huawei was asked about its presence in North Korea, and they responded by saying that the company currently has no business dealings with the dictatorial regime. It’s not encouraging, especially since everything described in the documents happened a decade ago.

It remains to be seen how these new revelations will impact the US-China negotiations, but it’s not going to look great on Huawei’s resume.