|
Legislation required
on PRC investment: report
By Chen Ching-min and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff
writer
A report by the Taiwan Thinktank says legislation is urgently needed to address
concerns relating to foreign or Chinese investments or mergers that may pose a
threat to national security.
Citing recent measures in the US, India and Australia to prevent Chinese firm
Huawei from investing in their national telecom networks, the report says
Taiwan’s government should be on its guard.
The report says the Australian government prevented Huawei from bidding in its
national broadband network, and the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States (CFIUS) not only blocked Huawei from purchasing US firm 3Com five
years ago, but last year blocked Huawei’s attempt to buy-out 3Leaf, a US server
technology company.
CFIUS had said that it was concerned about the leadership of Huawei. The
company’s founder, Ren Zengfei (任正非), is a retired People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
officer, while its chairman, Sun Yafang (孫亞芳), worked for the Chinese Ministry
of State Security.
One of the largest telecommunication companies in the world, Huawei is close to
the Chinese government and military — both having invested in the company — the
report said, adding that Huawei reciprocated by gathering intelligence and
monitoring information.
The report also said that there was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organization
within the company.
While other countries are on their guard, Taiwan is mulling further opening up
its first category telecommunication equipment to foreign and Chinese
investment, the report said. It pointed to civilian telecom giants such as
FarEasTone and Taiwan Mobile, which have investment and cooperation agreements
with China Mobile and China Unicom respectively.
Telecommunications services in Taiwan are divided into two distinct categories —
National Communications Commission (NCC) approved owners of wired or wireless
fixed communications networks as the first category, and all external businesses
that operate with, or as sub-contractors to, first category firms as the second
category — based on the Telecommunications Act (電信法).
The report says Huawei obtained Far EasTone purchase orders for its Radio
Network Controller and maintenance outsourcing for base stations from Far
EasTone, adding that Huawei also manufactured some of Taiwan Mobile’s fixed
network ethernet network equipment.
The Executive Yuan should establish a Committee on National Security concerning
Foreign and Chinese Investment, under which a “telecom division” should be
formed by members of the National Security Bureau (NSB) and the Ministry of
Justice to reviews foreign and Chinese investment in the Taiwanese telecoms
industry, the report suggested.
The think tank also said that the committee and the division should make its
assessment and ideas known to the NCC.
The report said that constant software upgrades for large telecom companies were
a necessity. It also noted that NCC amendments to the Telecommunications Act,
while giving legal basis to manage national information safety threats, do not
resolve the issue of how the standard for telecommunication equipment would be
set.
Though one-time information safety checks are more affordable, they risk missing
seemingly harmless files which might pose a security risk. However, constant
security checks could lead to an explosion of overhead costs, the report said.
Previously when questioned by lawmakers in the legislatiure on related issues,
NSB director Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝) said that the bureau was against the opening
of first-category telecom equipment, adding that it had already placed Huawei on
a blacklist for participation in bids involving core Taiwanese telecom systems
or technology.
|
