CRI听力:Political Motivation a Threat to Business and Market

The US congressional report is released after a year-long investigation into the so-called national security dangers posed by the two China-based international companies. The report accused the two companies of doing cyber espionage for the Chinese government and called upon US government contractors to exclude Huawei or ZTE equipment or component parts. It also suggested US companies in the private sector seek other vendors for their network equipment. However, the over-50-page-report failed to provide any hard evidence.
 
William Plummer, Huawei's vice-president in the US, said the latest allegations are dangerous political distractions.

"It is a political distraction. It is a dangerous thing to suggest that you can solve these vulnerabilities by embargoing a company. It's a false sense of security that ignores the fact. Americans do deserve the truth they did not hear today and they did not see it in that report."

He points out that Huawei is a global company that is well respected and trusted in 150 markets globally by over 500 operators, including the major nationwide operators in every OECD country. And the quality and the integrity of the company's products are world-proven.

He stressed that in a globalized world, there is not a single vendor in this industry that does not operate globally. They design, build and encode products from a global basis and share common supply chains as well as common vulnerabilities.

Plummer added that recommending US companies to sever their business ties with a China-based international company does nothing to protect national security, but rather threatens American jobs and innovation.

"Huawei last year did 32.4 billion dollars of business globally, roughly one third of the components that going to our product come from America-based suppliers. Our procurements from US companies last year totaled 6.6 billion dollars. That's tens of thousands of jobs. These recommendations put at risk on American jobs. These recommendations put at risk hundreds of millions of dollars of investment from outside the US into this country, and billions of dollars of procurement from American firms. They undermine competition, which undermines innovation, which drives up the price of your broadband. And worse yet, it creates market-destroying trade policy practices that can now potentially be used against American companies that are doing business overseas."

He stressed that the US government should not hold businesses hostage in solving trade disputes with other countries.

"If the US government and this committee have issues with the government of another country around cyber or otherwise, it is their responsibility to manage those issues. It is not fair to hold hostage an independent employee-owned company that is bringing affordable broadband across the planet."

Meanwhile the other company, ZTE released a statement, saying it profoundly disagrees with the allegations that it is controlled by the Chinese government. It further noted that ZTE should not be a focus of this investigation to the exclusion of the much larger Western vendors.

To date, Huawei is the world's second-largest telecommunications equipment maker while ZTE ranks fifth.

FOR CRI, I am Xiaohong in Washington.