TECH

Study points to link between Huawei and curriculum-based espionage

Christopher Balding has identified Huawei officials simultaneously employed by the Chinese military, or who previously worked on telecommunications monitoring and hacking projects, and others who describe their work in the technology group as being linked to the State Security Ministry of China .
The professor at Fulbright University in Vietnam, along with researchers at the American research unit Henry Jackson Society, had access to about 25,000 resumes from Huawei employees, leaked from the database of Chinese recruiters.
"We find cases where [Huawei] officials essentially report that they operate for Chinese intelligence services or at the same time conduct research on Huawei and are employed by the People's Liberation Army," Balding told Lusa.
The American admits that technology companies are often hired by former military personnel, but that in the case of Huawei, there are officials who cooperate directly with the state in collecting data for apparent "political motives."
"Many curricula refer to these operations as the result of a quasi-institutionalized relationship," he said.
The preliminary results of the research, which will develop over the next few months, comes at a time of intense debate in Europe, including Portugal, about whether Huawei should be included in the construction of Infrastructure for Fifth Generation (5G) networks, Internet of the future. Australia, the United States, New Zealand and Japan have already restricted their participation in their markets.
The conclusions of the study can not be independently confirmed, since Balding did not share the database publicly, describing in concrete terms only three profiles, in order to protect the identities of individuals.
The scholar says research data and results have been shared with researchers, governments and "trust" politicians and are willing to respond to particular issues.
In a statement, Huawei said that after a preliminary investigation, "it did not detect any of those alleged" resumes of Huawei employees.
The company also said it encourages professional and fact-based studies.
"We hope that, in the future, the research papers will contain less guesswork when formulating conclusions," he added.
The distrust of Huawei is fueled in part by its founder, Ren Zhengfei, a former engineer in the Chinese army, and a law passed in 2017, which requires large Chinese companies to cooperate with the intelligence services of parents.
The company denies any connection to the intelligence services and the Chinese military.
"Huawei lies," says Christopher Balding. "They have been caught up in lying so many times that they have lost credibility," he adds.
Christopher Balding has lectured for nine years and until last year at the branch in Shenzhen, South China, of HSBC Business School, Peking University.
However, the institution did not renew the contract, indicating weak academic performance.
Earlier, Balding had issued an online petition to have the British university of Cambridge replenish more than 300 politically sensitive articles removed from its official website in China at the request of Chinese authorities. Lusa Agency