Huawei CEO denies ‘backdoor’ from Chinese government

The founder and CEO of Chinese telecom giant Huawei denies in a new interview that his company poses a security threat to the U.S. and has dismissed allegations of links to the Chinese government.

In his first interview with a U.S. outlet, Ren Zhengfei told CBS News that Huawei has never provided information to the Chinese government and never will, according to a clip that aired Tuesday on “CBS This Morning.” He also denied that Beijing could have backdoor access to the company’s technology.

“It is not possible,” Ren said. “Because across our entire organization, we’ve stressed once and again that we will never do that. If we did have that, with America’s advanced technology, they would [have] found that already. So that proves we do not have it.”

{mosads}Ren’s comments come as President Trump is reportedly preparing to issue an executive order blocking companies like Huawei from next-generation wireless networks in the U.S. known as 5G.

In another interview with the BBC, the CEO also blasted the arrest of his daughter, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, and the Justice Department’s indictments of her and the company. Late last month, the U.S. charged the company and its executives with violating sanctions against Iran and stealing intellectual property.

The U.S. is also said to be preparing a formal request to extradite Meng from Canada, where she was arrested last year at the request of U.S. authorities.

“Firstly, I object to what the U.S. has done,” Ren told the BBC. “This kind of politically motivated act is not acceptable.”

And he said the U.S. efforts will not derail Huawei.

“There’s no way the U.S. can crush us,” Ren said in the BBC interview. “The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced. Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit.”