Several
employees have collaborated on research projects with Chinese armed forces personnel, indicating closer ties to the country’s military than previously acknowledged by the smartphone and networking powerhouse.
Over the past decade, Huawei workers have teamed with members of various organs of the People’s Liberation Army on at least 10 research endeavors spanning artificial intelligence to radio communications. They include a joint effort with the investigative branch of the Central Military Commission -- the armed forces’ supreme body -- to extract and classify emotions in online video comments, and an
with the elite
to explore ways of collecting and analyzing satellite images and geographical coordinates.
Those projects are just a few of the publicly disclosed studies that shed light on how staff at China’s largest technology company teamed with the People’s Liberation Army on research into an array of potential military and security applications. Bloomberg culled the papers from published periodicals and online research databases used mainly by Chinese academics and industry specialists. The authors of the treatises, which haven’t been reported in the media previously, identified themselves as Huawei employees and the company name was prominently listed at the top of the papers.
“Huawei is not aware of its employees publishing research papers in their individual capacity,” spokesman Glenn Schloss said in a messaged statement. “Huawei does not have any R&D collaboration or partnerships with the PLA-affiliated institutions,” he said. “Huawei only develops and produces communications products that conform to civil standards worldwide, and does not customize R&D products for the military.”
China’s defense ministry didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment. Huawei Chief Legal Officer Song Liuping on Thursday reaffirmed the spokesman’s comments. “Huawei doesn’t customize products nor provide research for the military,” he
in Shenzhen. “We are not aware of the papers some employees have published. We don’t have such joint-research projects” with the PLA.
The Trump administration has imposed strict limits on Huawei’s ability to do business with U.S. companies and urged allies to follow suit, saying it poses a national security threat. Washington has zeroed in on what it says is Huawei’s close association with the armed forces in part because billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei -- a self-avowed Party loyalist -- was an officer who
on communications during his military tenure.
It’s unclear whether the studies Bloomberg saw -- dating back to 2006 and discovered during a search of an online
used in part by professors to root out plagiarism among college students -- encompassed every instance of Huawei-employee collaboration with the PLA. Many sensitive projects are classified or just never make it online. While researchers with both Huawei and the military published thousands of papers according to that database, only the 10 Bloomberg saw were joint efforts. And the company employs upwards of 180,000 people.
Tech companies and military agencies have been collaborating around the world for decades, generating many of the technologies that underpin the modern internet. In China, that public-private relationship is particularly close-knit because of Beijing’s sway in every sector of the economy. But Huawei consistently plays down suggestions that Ren’s background influences the corporation in any way, and says its relationship with the military is minimal and non-political.
The research papers show one area of overlap, at least in terms of personnel. While they don’t prove that Huawei itself has close links to the Chinese military, they do show that the company’s relationship -- or at least that of its employees -- with the PLA is more nuanced than its executives have previously outlined publicly.
Huawei has said it never discloses sensitive information to the government and wouldn’t even if asked. Ren himself has shrugged off Huawei’s relationship with the military since he emerged from semi-seclusion in
to speak with foreign media for the first time in years.
“We have no cooperation with the military on research,” he told reporters in Shenzhen in January, according to a transcript that Huawei provided. “Perhaps we sell them a small amount of civilian equipment. Just how much, I’m not clear on because we don’t regard them as a core customer.”
The armed forces too have strongly denied official links to Huawei. “Huawei is not a military company,” Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe
at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June. “Do not think that because the head of Huawei used to serve in the military, then the company that he built is part of the military.”
Yet the extent of Huawei’s military ties remains a topic of intense scrutiny in the U.S. because of the role the PLA has had in issues ranging from ratcheting up tensions in the South China Sea to alleged acts of state-sponsored hacking. Its opaque operations and far-reaching powers in a country obsessed with stability have also raised concerns. Chairmanship of the Central Military Commission is often thought to be key to maintaining power in the country, which is why Xi Jinping and his predecessors were appointed heads of the body. The leader has doubled down on a policy dubbed “civil-military integration,” which aims to harness technology for military purposes. Beijing has thus encouraged greater participation from private companies in the defense sector.
...
