Advanced Search

The story appears on

Page A2

February 21, 2019

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Nation

Ardern assures Huawei of fair deal

Source: Xinhua | 00:00 UTC+8 February 21, 2019 | Print Edition

NEW Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said Huawei has never been excluded from the construction of New Zealand’s 5G network.

Ardern said China’s biggest telecommunications company Huawei was never ruled out of building parts of New Zealand telecommunications supplier Spark’s 5G network.

“How far down the track the UK already is with Huawei, actually is different to New Zealand ... we have a different process,” she said.

“We have a piece of legislation that says that we go through a pretty rigorous assessment independently via Government Communications and Security Bureau, they’ll look at concerns or any security issues.

“They never were not (allowed to build New Zealand’s 5G network), there was a very quick interpretation of what happened, but as I say, the legislation sets out a process.

“The GCSB have raised concerns, that is in the public domain, they have gone back to Spark with those concerns, now the ball is in Spark’s court, that is literally where the process sits.”

Regarding the argument that Five Eyes alliance countries Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are facing pressure from the United States, Ardern said that although the Five Eyes alliance partners share information, New Zealand will make its own independent decision on the Huawei 5G solution.

A spokesman for Spark said it had yet to decide whether to submit a revised 5G upgrade proposal incorporating Huawei gear. Spokesman Andrew Pirie said Spark was still assessing information forwarded by the GCSB, “some of which is security classified.”

Huawei had been scheduled to construct Spark’s 5G network. In November, the GCSB suddenly opposed Spark’s use of Huawei’s 5G technology equipment on the grounds of the so-called “significant network security risk.”

On Monday, the Financial Times quoted internal sources as saying the British government concluded that it could simultaneously control security risks in the 5G network using Huawei equipment.

The Financial Times said this was a heavy blow to the US attempt to persuade allies to ban Chinese telecom operators from participating in the construction of high-speed telecommunications networks.

Although there is no official statement so far, the Financial Times said Britain’s National Cyber Security Center has concluded that the risk of using Huawei devices in future 5G networks is controllable.

Previously, at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland in January, Ardern promised to treat Huawei fairly.

“This is not about a particular vendor,” she said. “This is about a framework in New Zealand that I think serves us well.”

She said New Zealand’s legislation provides a framework in which Spark and Huawei have the opportunity to address security concerns.

Nation


 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend