In the midst of combatting the U.S. government’s claims that Huawei poses a threat to national security, the Chinese telecommunications giant opened the doors of its new Cyber Security Transparency Centre in Brussels—considered the de facto capital of the European Union—Tuesday.
“Trust needs to be based on facts, facts must be verifiable, and verification must be based on common standards,” Deputy Chairman Ken Hu told representatives from the EU and World Economic Forum. “We believe that this is an effective model to build trust for the digital era.”
This came the day after news broke that Huawei is considering suing the United States government, alleging that it has unfairly blocked all federal agencies from using its equipment.
U.S. officials accused the company’s equipment of being “potentially compromised” by the Chinese government at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona last month—lobbying for ally countries and global telecom operators to steer clear of the company, in spite of critique for not providing evidence of the charges.
Although the U.K. and Germany are both U.S. allies, they also house Huawei centers and haven’t cowed to pressure to cut ties to a company that is promising to build the world’s first 5G railway station.
According to the Associated Press, the cybersecurity lab “will be a platform where government agencies, technical experts, industry associations, and standards organizations can collaborate on cybersecurity,” also allowing customers and internet companies to test Huawei’s networking equipment.
As Huawei continues to woo foreign entities and quash U.S. accusations, it has also offered to open a security-testing facility in Poland.
This may prove difficult as Polish authorities arrested a Chinese Huawei employee on espionage allegations in January, which the telecom giant declined having any knowledge of or involvement in. Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was also arrested in Canada in December on fraud charges, for which she has pleaded not guilty.
