The technology advisor of American president Donald Trump warned China and Huawei at tech conference Web Summit. Even though he also received resistance from the audience when someone dropped the name ‘Edward Snowden’.
It was the American chief technology officer Michael Kratsios, also advisor to President Trump, who played hard at China Summit in Lisbon to China and criticizes Huawei in particular.
According to him, Chinese companies are not reliable because Chinese legislation obliges them to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services. He also criticized countries that do allow Huawei and other Chinese companies. In his speech, he argues that Europe follows the US and does not use Huawei and does not export technology to the company.
According to Business Insider, Kratsios received little support in his freely politicised speech. The only applause came after someone in the room criticised shouted the name Edward Snowden, the man who revealed a few years ago that the US, through American technology companies, spies on citizens worldwide.
Ironically, just what the US is now accusing Huawei of.
Last month, Huawei emphasized in the European Parliament that it is not behind the Chinese government.
According to Reuters, Kratsios also referred in his speech to the accusation that China had obtained data from the African Union headquarters through Huawei’s IT infrastructure there. Although Huawei and the African Union have meanwhile emphasised denied that story.
The US argument against Huawei has moderate success for the time being. Since the call, several countries have had extra attention to the security aspect and possible espionage. But there is currently no question of an explicit ban from Huawei or its also Chinese competitor ZTE.
Today Huawei has 65 commercial deals for 5G. According to Reuters, half of those are with European customers.