Pompeo: Open eyes to risks of Huawei, Chinese technology

TECHNOLOGY’S RISKS The company logo of Chinese telecom equipment and consumer electronics manufacturer Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., which was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former communist engineer in the People’s Liberation Army. —AP

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said the world should have “eyes wide open” about the risks of using Huawei telecommunications equipment and other Chinese technologies.

Asked during his overnight visit to Manila about the prospect of the Philippines using Huawei 5G technology as it seeks to modernize its telecom infrastructure, Pompeo said the risk was real and that the United States could only share its fears with allies.

He also said there could be problems for American companies operating in certain places where Huawei equipment was deployed.

“Our task has been to share with the world the risks associated with that technology: the risks to the Philippine people, the risk to Philippine security, the risk that America may not be able to operate in certain environments if there is Huawei technology adjacent to that,” he told a news conference at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pasay City.

Sovereign decision

He said the US government believed that every nation should make its “own sovereign decision” on whether or not to adopt the Chinese company’s technology.

“We want to make sure that the world has their eyes wide open as to the risks of having that technology to be part of infrastructure, backbone or networks that are transiting communication inside of the country and back here around the world, transiting that information internationally as well,” he added.

The US government has been piling pressure on Huawei, the world’s biggest telecommunications equipment maker, and trying to prevent American companies from buying Huawei routers and switches, as well as advising allies to do the same.

Pompeo said competition in 5G and other technologies “should be open, free and transparent.”

But Huawei, he said, “is not that.”

Transparent competition

“We believe that competition, whether it’s in 5G or some other technology has to be open, free and transparent, and we worry that Huawei is not that,” he said.

Pompeo said that American companies are the “best partners” in infrastructure, development and digital economy, “because they operated with the highest standards of transparency and adheres to rule of law.”

“The same cannot be said of the Chinese state-run or state-backed enterprises,” he added.