EU must remain wary of Trojan horse Huawei

A recent press release from Huawei has revealed that the company is deepening its partnership with Greek industrial conglomerate Mytilineos, agreeing to supply Huawei solar inverters to PV plants in the UK, Spain, Cyprus and beyond. The deal has already sparked concern among certain analysts and stakeholders that the partnership is simply a means of insinuating Huawei components into European countries’ critical energy infrastructure for the company’s own aims – and for those of the Chinese government, to which Huawei has extremely close ties, writes Louis Auge.

Whether that’s the intent behind this particular partnership with Mytilineos, the move has shed a spotlight on the fact that European policymakers have yet to fully address the question of whether sensitive Huawei equipment should be allowed a role in European renewable energy infrastructure. The Chinese firm has been hurt badly by US sanctions against its telecommunications operations and is banking on its solar power activities to emerge as a major breadwinner. The same security suspicions, however, persist in this new avenue of commerce – even if EU lawmakers have remained largely silent on the question up to this point.

Huawei an extension of the Chinese state?

One of the major concerns about Huawei is the company’s allegedly tight links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The firm has denied the connection on multiple occasions and insisted that it’s entirely “employee-owned”. Nevertheless, evidence continues to mount suggesting that Huawei and the powers-that-be in Beijing are closer than they profess to be. Two American researchers carried out an April 2019 investigation into Huawei’s ownership arrangement and concluded that the business had been misleading about its ownership. In the wake of the report, Huawei went into damage control mode—but a 90-minute interview given by the chief secretary of Huawei’s board of directors gave an unsatisfying explanation of the situation.

Indeed, that controversy-defusing PR stunt did not quite have the intended effect. The same researchers carried out a follow-up study three months later, analyzing over 25,000 resumes of past and present Huawei employees and finding “troubling” links to Chinese military and intelligence agencies in the process. Meanwhile, a British parliamentary enquiry also uncovered evidence of “collusion” between Huawei and the Chinese government, validating the suspicions that have led many European governments to follow Washington’s lead in blocking Huawei from large swaths of their telecommunications networks, including 5G infrastructure.

Solar-powered survival strategy

The US has taken a particularly hostile stance on Huawei above and beyond the telecoms industry, with 10 bipartisan senators sending a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in December 2019 outlining their concerns about allowing Huawei technology to gain an important foothold in the renewables market. The lawmakers’ concerns followed a similar missive in February of the same year, which was sent to the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, with President Trump making moves to sideline the company as a result. Huawei responded by announcing a total shutdown of its solar operations in the States in June 2019, citing an “unwelcome climate”.

Despite pulling out of the US solar sector, Huawei still has significant designs on the sector in other countries. Shut out of the 5G market in much of the world and suffering from American sanctions which have crippled its access to the high-tech chips it needs to build smartphones and other products, Huawei is hoping that the ever-expanding renewable energy sector can give its business a boost. Given that the Chinese firm commands 22% of the global market for the solar inverters that are an essential part of any PV system, it’s perhaps unsurprising that it wishes to cement its place as a leading name away from the States – for example, in Europe and beyond.

Brussels must be proactive

The memorandum of cooperation with Mytilineos is testament to that ambition – but critics worry that business success isn’t the only target in Huawei’s crosshairs. The fact that Mytilineos and its subsidiaries already have a number of agreements to supply PV projects to European countries means that those nations may now unwittingly be embedding Huawei technology into their renewable infrastructure which could allow Beijing a backdoor into their energy grids.

It’s not difficult to envision the problems which this could cause, given China’s long history of industrial espionage. What’s more, a widespread blackout which swept across Mumbai last October—ostensibly a warning from Beijing over skirmishes on the Sino-Indian border—has raised concerns that Chinese authorities are seeking to interfere in other countries’ electric grids in particular.

Under the circumstances, the prospect of Huawei-produced devices making their way into the heart of the European electric grid is deeply troubling. As has been seen with the Mytilineos partnership, there is a real danger that countries will sleepwalk their way into an energy infrastructure that’s sustainable and clean – but subject to Beijing’s whims. With it now looking likely that Huawei equipment will pop up in solar power projects in Cyprus, Spain and other countries across the European bloc, the time is ripe for lawmakers to take action and prevent the pervasive influence of the CCP from creeping any further.

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