ASIO has ear on Chinese whispers

as posted here

ASIO is investigating claims that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is employing technicians in Australia with direct links to the People’s Liberation Army.
The claims have been made by Huawei employees in Sydney and Melbourne, who are understood to have approached ASIO with their concerns.
Huawei has been the subject of critical scrutiny by intelligence agencies in the US and Britain about its alleged links with the Chinese military and intelligence apparatus.
The company, which employs more than 100 people in Sydney and about 20 in Melbourne, was founded by former PLA officer Ren Zhengfei, but strongly denies that it does the bidding of the Chinese government or that it has links with the PLA.
It maintains that it is a legitimate telecom company, having been a part of the recent unsuccessful bid by Singtel Optus to build the $15 billion national broadband network.
The federal government, which has warned about the growing threat of cyber-espionage, has not made any public allegations against Huawei, which has been operating in Australia for four years.
But The Weekend Australian understands that ASIO officers have interviewed current and former Huawei employees – all Australian nationals – several times this year in Melbourne and Sydney.
The claims made to ASIO include:
* That Huawei employs Chinese nationals in Australia who have direct links with the PLA and with the Chinese government;
* That senior Huawei officials are summoned to frequent meetings with Chinese government officials at Chinese embassies and consulates in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne;
* That Huawei has recently sacked several dozen of its Australian-born workforce, replacing them with Chinese nationals brought in from China;
* That Huawei employs a security controller whose full-time job is to monitor the emails and other communications of the company.
The Weekend Australian understands that ASIO has conducted a broad investigation into Huawei’s operations in Australia, but it is unclear what the spy probe has found.
A spokesman for Huawei yesterday described as “inaccurate and ungrounded” claims that the company had links to the Chinese military or the Chinese government.
“Huawei is 100 per cent employee-owned and no government or government agencies have any involvement or ownership in our operations,” the spokesman said.
“Our links to the government are no more than any links General Electric might have to the US government due to the fact that some members of its management team are military veterans and they sell products to the US military.”
He revealed that Huawei representatives met officers from ASIO in June for “a routine briefing” to “provide a brief introduction to Huawei”.
The company says about 30per cent of its workers in Australia are “Chinese expats” and that while there had been recent “adjustments to the allocation and structure of resources”, there had been no wholesale sacking of Australian staff.
A spokesman for Attorney-General Robert McClelland told The Weekend Australian: “ASIO has frequent contact with the telecommunications industry in Australia. In that context, ASIO contact with Huawei Telecommunications is unsurprising.
“Beyond that, and consistent with longstanding practice of the Australian government, it would be inappropriate to comment on the operational activities of the intelligence community.” In his first public speech as ASIO chief, David Irvine, a former ambassador to China, warned in July that cyber espionage was a growing threat for countries such as Australia.
“The explosion of electronic communications technology has expanded infinitely the opportunities for the covert acquisition of information by both state-sponsored and non-state actors,” he said.
Beijing has vigorously denied claims that it engages in human or cyber espionage in Australia, but in 2004, ASIO set up a new counter-espionage unit to combat the rising incidence of foreign espionage in Australia.
More recently, the government has boosted the electronic eavesdropping agency, Defence Signals Directorate, to combat what it believes is a concerted attempt by Chinese hackers to gain access to Australian government computer systems.
Huawei was the subject of a US investigation last year after legislators expressed concern about its alleged links to the Chinese military. Intelligence chiefs in the US, Britain and India have debated the legitimacy of Huawei; however, the company has been a commercial success.
In March, the propaganda chief of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Changchun, visited the company’s Australian headquarters in Sydney.

as posted here