Belgian intelligence puts Huawei on its watchlist – POLITICO

Belgium’s intelligence service is scrutinizing the operations of expertise big Huawei as fears of Chinese language espionage develop across the EU and NATO headquarters in Brussels, in response to confidential paperwork seen by POLITICO and three individuals aware of the matter.

In current months, Belgium’s State Safety Service (VSSE) has requested interviews with former staff of the corporate’s lobbying operation within the coronary heart of Brussels’ European district. The intelligence gathering is a part of safety officers’ actions to scrutinize how China could also be utilizing non-state actors — together with senior lobbyists in Huawei’s Brussels workplace — to advance the pursuits of the Chinese language state and its Communist occasion in Europe, mentioned the individuals, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The scrutiny of Huawei’s EU actions comes as Western safety businesses are sounding the alarm over firms with hyperlinks to China. British, Dutch, Belgian, Czech and Nordic officers — in addition to EU functionaries — have all been informed to keep off TikTok on work telephones over issues just like these surrounding Huawei, particularly that Chinese language safety laws forces Chinese language tech companies handy over knowledge.

The scrutiny additionally comes amid rising proof of international states’ affect on EU decision-making — a phenomenon starkly uncovered by the current Qatargate scandal, the place the Gulf state sought to affect Brussels by bribes and presents through middleman organizations. The Belgian safety companies are tasked with overseeing operations led by international actors across the EU establishments.

The State Safety Service declined to remark when requested concerning the intelligence gathering.

A Huawei spokesperson mentioned the corporate was unaware of the corporate’s Brussels workplace employees being questioned by the intelligence service.

China hyperlink

Belgian intelligence officers wish to decide if there are any direct ties between the Chinese language state and Huawei’s Brussels workplace, the individuals mentioned. Of specific curiosity, they added, are Huawei representatives who could have beforehand held posts in Brussels establishments with entry to a community of EU contacts.

On the core of Western issues surrounding Huawei — which is headquartered in Shenzhen, China — is whether or not the agency will be instrumentalized, pressured or infiltrated by the Chinese language authorities to achieve entry to important knowledge in Western international locations.

Huawei’s EU lobbying places of work — one situated in between the European Parliament and European Fee and Council buildings and the opposite a “cybersecurity transparency heart” near the U.S. embassy — have been a significant lobbying energy in EU policymaking over the previous decade. The newest company declarations put the agency among the many high 30 firms spending most on EU lobbying in Brussels, with a declared most spending of €2.25 million per 12 months. In 2018 — proper initially of the geopolitical storm that struck the agency — it entered the highest 10 of lobbying spenders in Brussels.

The corporate’s Shenzhen headquarters has additionally strengthened its management over its Brussels workplace actions over the previous decade. In 2019 it changed its then-head of the EU workplace Tony Graziano — who had a protracted observe report of lobbying the EU and had led Huawei’s Brussels workplace since 2011 — with Abraham Liu, an organization loyalist who had risen up the ranks of its worldwide operations. Liu was later changed with Tony Jin Yong, at present the principle consultant of Huawei with the EU. It has additionally persistently introduced in Chinese language employees to help its public affairs actions.

The Chinese language telecoms big final 12 months began ramping down its EU presence, folding its actions throughout Europe into its regional headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany, POLITICO reported in November. A part of that shake-up was to let go of among the agency’s Western strategists, who had labored to push again on bans and blocks of its gear up to now years.

Huawei has repeatedly pressured it’s unbiased from the Chinese language state. “Huawei is a business operation,” a spokesperson mentioned. Requested whether or not the corporate had a coverage to test which of its employees are members of the Chinese language Communist Get together, the spokesperson mentioned: “We don’t ask about or intervene with staff’political or non secular beliefs. We deal with each worker the identical no matter their race, gender, social standing, incapacity, faith or the rest.”

One key concern introduced up by Western safety authorities in previous years is that Huawei as a China-headquartered firm is topic to Beijing’s 2017 Nationwide Intelligence Legislation, which requires firms to “help, help, and cooperate with nationwide intelligence efforts” in addition to “shield nationwide intelligence work secrets and techniques they’re conscious of.”

Requested the way it handles authorized requests from the Chinese language authorities handy over knowledge, the spokesperson referred to the corporate’s regularly requested questions web page on the matter, which states: “Huawei has by no means acquired such a request and we’d categorically refuse to conform if we did. Huawei is an unbiased firm that works solely to serve its clients. We might by no means compromise or hurt any nation, group, or particular person, particularly in relation to cybersecurity and person privateness safety. 

Eye on EU

Huawei has confronted pushback from Belgian safety companies in previous years. The nation’s Nationwide Safety Council in 2020 imposed restrictions on its use in important elements of 5G networks.

Belgium — whereas being a small market — is taken into account strategically necessary for Western allies due to the presence of the EU establishments and the headquarters of the transatlantic NATO protection alliance.

The Belgian State Safety Service’s curiosity in Huawei follows an rising curiosity in China’s operations within the EU capital. In 2022, the service launched an intelligence report laying out its findings on the operations of Chinese language-backed lobbyists in Brussels. In it, the VSSE hit out on the Chinese language state for working in “a gray zone between lobbying, interference, political affect, espionage, financial blackmail and disinformation campaigns.”

In response to the research, the Chinese language embassy in Belgium mentioned the intelligence companies “slandered the reputable and lawful enterprise operation of Chinese language firms in Belgium, critically affecting their repute and inflicting potential hurt to their regular manufacturing and operation.”

It is not simply China. “Undue interference perpetrated by different powers additionally continues to be a crimson flag for the VSSE,” the intelligence service mentioned in its report. “The current interference scandal within the European Parliament is a living proof.”

So far as that case goes, the Belgian authorities have to this point charged a number of people within the ongoing legal investigation into allegations of bribery between Qatar and EU representatives, with police raids yielding €1.5 million in money.