MWC19 | Huawei chairperson denies US espionage allegations on stage

Huawei's current chair, Guo Ping, has completed an on-stage talk at MWC19. The subject was 5G, the infrastructure that will underpin its networks and the OEM's potential role in them. However, the United States' official position is that Huawei stands accused of cyber-espionage that benefits the Chinese administration, as well as the breach of certain sanctions and fraud.

This has sparked concern among Western and Westernized countries worldwide, resulting in moves to ban Huawei from the 5G hardware market in New Zealand and Australia. Currently, the UK and Germany are considering similar measures. Guo addressed these issues directly during his MWC19 event. The chair is quoted as saying: "Our responsibility (and) what we promise is we don't do anything bad — we don't do bad things".

Guo went on to assert that Huawei's role in the 5G deployment space is as a hardware vendor that "[doesn't] operate carriers' networks and [doesn't] own carrier data". The chair also called for a single system for the regulation of 5G provision and implementation worldwide, via improved collaboration between manufacturers, carriers and national authorities. Finally, Guo asserted that Huawei is a "responsible" provider of telecommunications equipment that does not allow "backdoors" to be placed into its systems by any party.