Huawei staff employment records link them to Chinese military agencies
Analysis of CVs of Huawei employees appear to show 'far closer links' between the company and military-backed cyber agencies than previously thought
LONDON — Huawei staff admitted to having worked with Chinese intelligence agencies in a “mass trove” of employment records leaked online.
Analysis of CVs of Huawei employees appear to show “far closer links” between the telecommunications company and military-backed cyber agencies than previously thought, a think-tank claims.
The employment files suggest that some Huawei staff have also worked as agents within China’s Ministry of State Security; worked on joint projects with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA); were educated at China’s leading military academy; and have been employed by a military unit accused of a cyber attack on U.S. corporations.
Analysis of the CVs found 11 Huawei staff graduated from the PLA’s Information Engineering University, a military academy reputed to be China’s centre for “information warfare research”.
The claims will strengthen demands for the telecoms operator to be frozen out of a deal to build part of Britain’s new 5G mobile phone network. The Daily Telegraph disclosed in April that Theresa May had given the green light to Huawei to build parts of the network despite national security concerns. Huawei said it does not work on military projects for China’s regime.
The CVs of up to 25,000 Huawei employees were uncovered by Christopher Balding, an associate professor at the Fulbright University Vietnam, while investigating Huawei’s ownership structure. The CVs were uploaded on Chinese recruitment platforms in the past year and began to appear online and on publicly accessible sites. Prof. Balding, in conjunction with the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think-tank, concluded that about 100 Huawei staff had connections with the Chinese military or intelligence agencies and their “backgrounds indicated experience in matters of national security”.
The study claims that one Huawei project team leader refers on his CV to work on joint projects between the telecoms company and the Chinese Army’s National University of Defence Technology, one of China’s leading military academies and was put on a U.S. list, banning American firms from selling it technology in 2015, under Barack Obama’s presidency.
Another Huawei employee’s CV says she works both at the telecoms giant as a software engineer and also at the Radar Academy of the Chinese Army. The academy, says Prof. Balding, “matches closely her work for Huawei”.
A manager at Huawei who has worked at the company since 2012 worked at the National Information Security Engineering Centre, which reportedly “collaborated for years” with Unit 61398 of the Chinese Army, a unit accused of being “at the heart of China’s alleged cyber war against Western commercial targets”. The study links another Huawei engineer, who has worked in Europe, to being a “representative” of the Ministry of State Security, China’s intelligence agency.
It is not unusual that Huawei employs people from public service and government
A further CV reveals a senior Huawei engineer worked on “a database-driven surveillance system capable of accessing every citizen’s record and connecting China’s security organizations” — otherwise known as the “Great Firewall of China”.
One more CV shows a Huawei telecoms engineer involved in development of 5G “base stations” who says on his CV that he cannot comment on his previous employment “due to the involvement of military secrets”. Prof. Balding said: “These CVs are a treasure trove.”
Charles Parton, a British diplomat who spent much of his career in China, said the cases “give the lie to Huawei’s claim that there is no evidence that they help the Chinese intelligence services. This gun is smoking.”
Ed Brewster, of Huawei, said: “Huawei does not work on military or intelligence projects for the Chinese Government. This information is not new and is not secret, being freely available on career websites. It is not unusual that Huawei employs people from public service and government. We are proud of their backgrounds and we are open about them.”
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