Huawei chairman plays down blacklisting of Australian arm

Huawei Australia’s chairman says the local arm won’t be hurt by its addition to a US blacklist.

Huawei Australia chairman John Lord. Picture Gary Ramage

Huawei Australia chairman John Lord says the local operations of the Chinese technology giant won’t be hurt by the Trump administration’s decision to put it on a blacklist.

According to Mr Lord, the company is well insulated from the impact of the US ban.

“We are still investigating this but at the moment we don’t see any great impact, most of our supplies come from the headquarters (in China),” he told the ABC’s AM radio program.

He added that the company was surprised by the US decision, saying that it was another escalation in the ongoing trade tension between the US and China.

According to Mr Lord, closing the doors on Huawei had more to do with geopolitics and trade rather than any explicit security threat posed by the company’s equipment.

“To put Huawei’s subsidiaries on the (ban list) without any allegation of doing anything wrong just shows that this is really about the trade dispute rather than national security.”

The comments come after Huawei’s Australian arm was put on the blacklist of companies that US firms are banned from selling services to.

Huawei Australia is one of the 46 new Huawei subsidiaries added by the US Department of Commerce to its Entity List, which now stretches beyond 100 and makes it harder for Huawei to keep operating in the US.

The decision comes just days before the first anniversary of the Australian government’s decision to ban it from participating in the rollout of local 5G networks.

Mr Lord said there was no chance of the 5G ban lifting in the short-term.

“The government has been very clear but we still await the written confirmation that spells out the reasons for the ban but we don’t hold out hope that it will be lifted in the new term.”

He reiterated that Huawei Australia was not subject to Chinese law, a major point of concern for Australian intelligence agencies.

“In Australia we obey the laws of the country, Chinese laws don’t apply here, and our equipment is operated by Australian telcos, is maintained by Australians and there is no way any information would be handed over to a foreign government.”