Huawei chairman Liang Hua has said that the company is working on a plan to build its own components in Europe, as the company strives to overcome US sanctions.
“We are planning to manufacture our own components at a production site in Europe in the future,” he said in an interview at AFP’s headquarters.
“We are conducting a feasibility study to open a factory in Europe for this. The choice of country will depend on that study,”
While there is no timetable for the choice, Liang said “it could happen very quickly”.
The company chairman said: “In the area of 5G technology, we are already no longer dependent on the supply of chips and other components from American companies.”
US intelligence chiefs claim that Huawei cannot be trusted and that as the United States and other nations introduce next-generation mobile networks, its equipment is a threat to national security.
For now, Trump has offered a series of temporary reprieves for Huawei to allow service providers covering remote rural areas time to comply with the ban.
Liang reiterated Huawei’s denials of any espionage accusation, insisting it had never been asked by the Chinese government to eavesdrop on its customers.
“In the past 30 years we have never been the object of such a request. Even if one was made in the future, we would turn down such a request,” he said.
Chinese law requires individuals and organizations to assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.
Australia and Japan have taken steps to bar or tightly restrict the firm’s participation in their rollouts of 5G networks. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson strongly hinted that the UK would follow suit.
Against that backdrop, Huawei has stressed a focus on continental Europe, and has announced plans to spend $40 billion on European supplies.
Germany has refused to ban Huawei from its own 5G deployment, provoking criticism that Europe’s biggest economy is trying to appease China, its largest trading partner, and putting economic interests above security.
