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Bar China’s Huawei
from government bids: NSB
SECURITY RISK: The NSB was responding to
concerns regarding agencies such as the Investigation Bureau using products from
the firm linked to China’s military
By Rich Chang and Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter and staff writer,
with CNA
National Security Bureau Director
Tsai Der-sheng answers questions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign
Affairs and National Defense Committee in Taipei yesterday, saying that the
bureau does not support government agencies using Huawei Technologies Co’s
products.
Photo: CNA
National Security Bureau (NSB) Director
Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝) yesterday said that his bureau does not support government
agencies using China’s Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) products and said the
company should be barred from government bids.
Tsai made the remarks during a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and
National Defense Committee in the morning.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) asked Tsai
Der-sheng whether government agencies, including the Presidential Office and the
Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, had used Huawei’s network cards in
their work cellphones.
He said that the government should be more alert to the possibility that
confidential information could “very easily” be obtained by China via Huawei
products.
Saying that Huawei is linked to the People’s Liberation Army, Tsai Huang-liang
said that the government should ban the company from participating in public
bids.
If the government itself is the biggest buyers of Huawei products, how could the
government restrict private companies from buying Huawei products for national
security concerns, he added.
“This is our policy now. The NSB has banned using Huawei’s products and thinks
other government bureaus should not use the company’s products,” the NSB
official added.
Tsai Huang-liang cited government statistics showing that the Investigation
Bureau bought 124 sets of Huawei network cards, while the Presidential Office
six sets and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications bought 20 Huawei
cellphones.
The Mainland Affairs Council bought one set of Huawei’s network cards, but
stopped using them after discovering they were produced by Huawei, he added.
The Investigation Bureau responded in a press statement that last year, it
applied for a number of cellphone numbers from Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) for
agents’ internal communications, but Chunghwa offered network cards produced by
Huawei with the numbers.
The Investigation Bureau added that those cellphones were closed-system
cellphones used in inner network and could not be connected with the Internet or
other networks.
The bureau is not concerned that confidential information could have been leaked
by using those public phones, it added.
The Investigation Bureau said that it had no knowledge that the wireless network
sticks it acquired from Chunghwa Telecom were manufactured by Huawei at the time
of purchase.
“As the products have only been connected to the bureau’s closed internal
network, there is no possibility that [confidential national security
information] has been leaked,” the bureau said.
At a legislative session earlier yesterday, Tsai Huang-liang presented
statistics regarding government agencies’ procurement of communication devices
from Huawei in the past year.
The statistics showed that the Investigation Bureau had purchased 124 of
Huawei’s E173 multi-mode wireless terminals, the largest number bought by any
government agency.
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