Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has not provided evidence that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei poses a security threat to United States allies, a top European diplomat says.
“So far I have not received any kind of documentation,” Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto told the Washington Examiner.
His comments were a clear rebuff of U.S. concerns about Huawei just weeks after Pompeo traveled to Budapest to warn that the telecommunications company is part of a Chinese effort to “erode freedom” in the region. Szijjarto, who met with Pompeo during the February visit, took care to emphasize that “whatever the secretary says, I respect it” but rejected his NATO colleague’s conclusions.
“I supervise intelligence as well,” Szijjarto said, in Washington last week for a summit marking NATO’s 70th anniversary. “I have not received a report so far from my intelligence saying that the presence of Huawei in Hungary poses a national security threat.”
Hungary is a hub for Huawei operations in Central Europe. About 70% of Hungarians depend on the company, which has placed supply and logistics chains in the country that provide “support for over 50 countries on the European continent.”
Pompeo warned in Budapest that NATO allies using Huawei technology risk losing the ability to work alongside U.S. forces. Szijjarto dismissed American concerns at the time. “When it comes to cooperation with Russia or cooperation with the People’s Republic of China, that doesn’t endanger us being a reliable partner to the United States and to NATO,” he told reporters at the pair’s joint press conference.
“They get to make their own decisions with respect to these things,” Pompeo said before the meeting. “What’s imperative is that we share with them the things we know about the risks that Huawei’s presence in their networks presents: actual risks to their own people, to the loss of privacy protections for their own people, the risk that China will use this data in a way that is not the best interest of Hungary.”
Szijjarto’s comments speak to the difficulty of uniting even Western allies against the company, which is the world’s second-largest maker of smartphones. The capabilities that make Huawei dangerous, according to U.S. assessments, also make the company an attractive partner. Huawei and other Chinese telecommunications giants are pioneers of 5G, the next-generation wireless technology that is expected to be exponentially faster than current systems.
“Digitalization and 5G is core from the perspective of our national economic performance for the future,” Szijjarto said. “What other telecommunication company could be offered to help to build 5G networks to the level of development where Huawei is there now?”
That development could come at a steep cost if Huawei leaves “hidden backdoors” for Chinese spies to access the communications equipment. American officials believe Huawei’s presence in Europe will give the Chinese government the ability to spy on NATO. Yet, Szijjarto noted, leading Western European companies Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone are partnering with Huawei in Hungary.
“It’s a competition,” Szijjarto said. “If the biggest German and if the biggest British telecommunication company contracts Huawei to build the necessary infrastructure for them, then what can I say?”
