Huawei banned because of Pak link?
By Bala Shah

Most Indian security experts feel that the biggest threats to our country come from Pakistan and China.  Conversely, the Chinese and Pakistanis will have their own views on which nations pose a danger to their own countries.  Any overseas Telecom company that has the potential to harm national interest is banned or restricted from operating in the host country. 

Indian intelligence and defence officials are very wary of Chinese Telecom major Huawei operating in India. Can China be relied on to supply hardware if we are in a conflict situation?  Can the Huawei telecom equipment be easily hacked from China?  The Indian Government also wants to ensure China does not make huge profits in the country even as it needles India on Kashmir, AP, borders, water and a number of other issues.  Last but not the least, the Indian Government realizes that economic levers can be used to bring China to the negotiating table.

Recently, the Indian Government started informally advising all telecom companies that operate in India that they should stop buying from Huawei.  But there has been no official announcement regarding any such ban.  In late April, senior Huawei management asked for meetings with PM Manmohan Singh’s office as well as other key cabinet ministers. They are promising that in the future Indian operations would be headed by Indians.

Even as senior Huawei management lobby the Indian Government, the public relations battle for the hearts and minds of Indians has intensified.  Very conveniently,  the Indian intelligence establishment leaked the ‘news’ to Indian newspapers on May 6, 2010 that Huawei’s Bangalore Office operates in such secrecy that Indian workers are barred from large sections of the premises.  India’s largest English newspaper Times of India headlined the article ‘Huawei Technologies bans Indians in India'.  By the discrete release of such anti Huawei information, Indian intelligence services have ensured an enraged India public will support the Government in any action.  How dare does anyone ban us from key positions and premises in our own country!

One of Pakistan’s most widely read technology blog Propakistani.pk told its readers via an article titled ‘India opens fire at Pakistan, bans Huawei’ that India had violated WTO norms and it could even be an anti Pakistani move. Propakistani told its readers

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This is not the first time that India has violated World Trade Organization (WTO) norms by indulging in trade protectionism and discriminating against business activities in India.

Indian Government has always adopted this policy whenever the business entity is in any sort of relation with Pakistan or it is doing business in Pakistan.

Beyond any iota of doubt, India is worried about the unprecedented growth of Telecom in Pakistan, and this is why it has repeatedly used un-comprehendible ways to hinder growth of companies operating in Pakistan.
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Indian Government and intelligence agencies have every right to be wary of China as it does not have a democratically elected Government and has done all it can undermine India. But this is not an anti Pakistani move.  Though convincing Pakistani technology blogs will be hard because of the distrust between sections of our countries.

(Techgoss had published the following article on Sept 8, 2009)

Chinese telecom Huawei links to army?
By Bala Shah

Most Indian security experts feel that the biggest threats to our country come from Pakistan and China.  Conversely, the Chinese and Pakistanis will have their own views on which nations pose a danger to their own countries.  Any overseas Telecom company that has the potential to harm national interest is banned or restricted from operating in the host country.  

Indian intelligence and defense officials are very wary of Chinese Telecom major Huawei operating in India. Even as Huawei bagged a $400 million order from Unitech Wireless to deploy services in South India, Indian intelligence was stepping in to block Huawei goods and services being used in projects that have national security implications. The Chinese Government has a say in the running of every major company in that country.

Now, Australia’s national newspaper Australian has mentioned the fears of US, UK and Indian security chiefs in a report about how Huawei has sacked Australian workers and replaced them with Chinese workers with military connections.

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Australian Security and Intelligence Organization (ASIO) is investigating claims that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is employing technicians in Australia with direct links to the People's Liberation Army.

The company, which employs more than 100 people in Sydney and about 20 in Melbourne, was founded by former PLA officer Ren Zhengfei, but strongly denies that it does the bidding of the Chinese government or that it has links with the PLA.

The claims made to ASIO include:

- That Huawei employs Chinese nationals in Australia who have direct links with the PLA and with the Chinese government;

- That senior Huawei officials are summoned to frequent meetings with Chinese government officials at Chinese embassies and consulates in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne;

- That Huawei has recently sacked several dozen of its Australian-born workforce, replacing them with Chinese nationals brought in from China;

- That Huawei employs a security controller whose full-time job is to monitor the emails and other communications of the company.

“

(Techgoss had published the following article on May 18, 2009)

BSNL resists full ban of Chinese Telecom
By Bala Shah

Most Indian security experts feel that the biggest threats to our country come from Pakistan and China.  Conversely, the Chinese and Pakistanis will have their own views on which nations pose a danger to their own countries.  Any overseas Telecom company that has the potential to harm national interest is banned or restricted from operating in the host country.  

The Indian Government is grappling with the same challenges while dealing with Chinese Telecom major Huawei. Huawei, on their website, describes itself as a leader in providing next generation telecommunications networks, and now serves 36 of the world's top 50 operators, along with over one billion users worldwide. By mid-2008, Huawei had 87,500 employees and massive overseas R&D Centres in  USA, Sweden, Russia and Bangalore,  India.

Last week, Huawei India bagged a $400 million order from mobile operator Unitech Wireless to deploy its services in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

But Huawei is facing strong opposition from the Indian intelligence agencies whenever it tenders for any Indian project with a national security dimension.  It is an open secret that part of the Huawei management is closely linked to the Chinese Government.   In the latest such case,  the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Defence Ministry has warned the Government owned BSNL that it should not give any of its major contracts to Huawei.

The Economic Times is reporting:

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Both IB and the defence ministry’s reactions are in the wake of BSNL’s move to shortlist Huawei, along with Swedish equipment major Ericsson, for its mega 93-million-line GSM expansion project worth around Rs 30,000 crore, in what is the single-largest telecom contract in the world. Ericsson was short-listed as the lowest bidder for north and east zones while Huawei was selected for west, east and south zones.

The views of IB and the defence ministry were conveyed to BSNL at a meeting on April 9. During the meet, both BSNL and the Department of Telecom (DoT) suggested that Huawei could be awarded the contract in south India since the region did not share sensitive borders with Pakistan, China and Bangladesh. Besides, the Department of Telecom argued that Huawei was already working with BSNL in south India.
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It beggars belief that while the Indian Intelligence agencies feel that a specific company should be kept out because of national interest,  the Department of Telecom (Dot) and BSNL feel it would be safe to award it a multi crore contract for South of India.

In this high stakes game,  the Indian Intelligence agencies have ‘leaked’ their views to Indian media to ensure there is mounting public pressure on BSNL to do things in the national interest.

As with most national security issues,  the Indian public will be in the dark on why exactly our intelligence services feel that this Chinese company should be blocked from major BSNL contracts.  Other countries like USA, Russia,  China and UK also never explain such decisions as it would compromise intelligence sources.

China has the same right to block Indian companies which may impinge on its security interests.  And it does.  China even created its own operating system Kylin to keep its dependency on Microsoft products to a bare minimum.  China has even engineered its own search engine Baidu so that its citizens do not use Google.  Naturally, Baidu has a very pro China slant to most issues. America, on its part, has blocked Huawei from a number of sensitive projects.