Europe is giving US-led calls for a boycott of Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) 5G telecoms equipment a mixed reception, with some governments untroubled by spy suspicions against the Chinese giant, but others backing a ban.
In the latest setback for the company, Huawei on Saturday said it had fired an employee in Poland who was arrested there a day earlier on suspicion of spying for China.
The company said it has “decided to terminate the employment of Mr Wang Weijing [王偉晶], who was arrested on suspicion of breaking Polish law.”
Polish authorities on Friday said they arrested Wang, a Chinese citizen and former diplomat, along with a Polish cybersecurity expert who also worked at the telecom company Orange.
State television identified the Polish man as Piotr D, and said he was a high-ranking employee at the Polish Internal Security Agency.
Huawei said Wang’s actions “have no relation to the company” and that he was fired because “the incident in question has brought Huawei into disrepute.”
The arrest rekindled tensions between China and the West over cybersecurity concerns surrounding Huawei. It is the world’s biggest maker of telecommunications equipment, but has been banned in the US since 2012 over fears it is a security risk.
Tensions over Huawei have intensified since Canada arrested chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟) last month at the request of US authorities.
Several Asian and Pacific countries have followed Washington’s call for a Huawei ban, but the picture in Europe is more nuanced, not least because Huawei’s 5G capabilities are so attractive.
They are well ahead of Sweden’s Ericsson AB, Finland’s Nokia Oy and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, analysts say.
“Operators have looked at alternatives, but have realized that Huawei is currently more innovative and probably better for 5G,” Fitch Solutions analyst Dexter Thillien said.
Portugal’s main operator MEO signed a deal with Huawei last month during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), praising the Chinese company’s “know how, competence, talent and capacity to develop technology and invest in our country.”
By contrast Norway, whose networks are for the most part made up of Huawei equipment, is thinking of ways to reduce its “vulnerability,” the country’s transport and communications minister was quoted in the local press as saying.
British Minister of State for Defense Affairs Gavin Williamson said he had “grave, very deep concerns about Huawei providing the 5G network in Britain.”
The Czech cybersecurity agency said that Chinese laws “force private companies with their headquarters in China to cooperate with intelligence services,” which could make them “a threat.”
Germany is under pressure from Washington to follow suit, Der Spiegel reported, but the country’s IT watchdog says it has found no evidence that Huawei could use its equipment to spy for Beijing.
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS