Huawei Technologies Co., China's largest telecommunications equipment maker, strongly denied the claims made by ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden that the Chinese company was a security threat to the United States.
Responding to the remarks made by the former CIA director, Spokesman Scott Sykes of the Chinese company, said Huawei was a "proven and trusted" technology equipment vendor.
Michael Hayden, in an exclusive interview with the Australian Financial Review, said that the Chinese company posed a security threat to U.S. and Australia, adding the company engaged in espionage for the Beijing government.
"These tired, unsubstantiated, defamatory remarks are sad distractions from real-world concerns related to espionage, industrial and otherwise," said Scott Sykes, according to the Bloomberg.
Last October, a U.S. congressional committee had also warned that the company was being used by Chinese intelligence officers to steal trade secrets and personal information from American citizens.
The Washington government in 2011 banned the Chinese company from participating in building a nationwide emergency network and last year, Australia barred the company from bidding on contracts in the $38 billion Australian National Broadband Network, citing "national interests."
The attacks upon the Chinese company from the foreign officials come amid Beijing's growing importance and changing role in global technology industries.
"No other network technology providers are going through the same scrutiny that Huawei is subjected to, and it's largely because Huawei is Chinese," said Steve Brazier, Chief Executive of Canalys, a wireless industry research firm.
Huawei Company, which generates almost 70% of its revenue abroad, is also being questioned for security issues in the U.K., a major market for the company.
Before the American whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked the U.S. National Security Agency's surveillance programs of monitoring communications and movements of people in the United States, the Obama administration had accused the Chinese government of stealing secret information from its official websites and business firms in the country.
Recently, President Obama raised the cyber security issues with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinxing in person in California but Snowden's sudden exposure proved to be a hard-blow for the Obama administration, making it difficult to press Beijing over cyber security issues.
