Politics behind debate on security threat from Huawei equipment, says India head Jay Chen

New Delhi: Politics is behind the debate and developments around security threat from Huawei equipment in various countries, Huawei India CEO Jay Chen said Tuesday. The official, however, said that the Chinese company has not received any objection from the Indian government so far. “Politics is behind all this,” Chen told reporters in New Delhi when asked about countries talking about security threat from Huawei telecom equipment. Some countries, including Australia, have banned Huawei equipment for 5G rollout, while the US government bodies have raised security concerns around the Chinese telecom gear firms. “We believe this is because of politics. Up till now in my communication with the Indian government, nobody has told us you are a problem,” Chen said. The Huawei leadership has made a commitment that they will prefer to close down the company if they are unable to secure data on the network of customers, he said. [caption id=“attachment_5975611” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AP[/caption] Telecom export body TEPC in December requested National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to ban the purchase of equipment from Chinese companies like Huawei, ZTE and Fiberhome for government networks, claiming they can pose a serious national security threat. TEPC has been set up by the government to promote telecom export from India. However, telecom minister Manoj Sinha denied in Parliament having any proposal to consider the ban on telecom gears and equipment made by Huawei. The company has given a presentation before the Telecom Department to start 5G trials in India and is waiting for its approval, Chen said. “No body has yet started field trials of 5G in India. Whenever the permission comes, Huawei will also be one among those who will start 5G trials in India,” he said. Huawei India Chief Technology Officer Radhey Shyam Sarda said the company has already started installing some of 5G technologies in Indian telecom networks and more will be done soon as 4G networks evolve and demand for 5G starts coming in. He said that Huawei leads 5G technology patents and approved standards developed till date as per the third party estimates. “We have already taken lead by developing first 5G chipset last year. This year Huawei will launch 5G smartphones and we expect to see 30 devices across industry for 5G services to be available by end of this year,” Sarda said.