Huawei, controversial in the West, is going strong in the Gulf
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is enjoying an extended honeymoon with oil-rich Gulf nations, despite being criticised in the United States and Europe as a potential security threat.
Arab Gulf countries -- strategic partners of Washington that
are seeking to diversify their economies -- are investing heavily in the sector
as their appetite for technology grows.
Huawei has struggled in recent years in the face of US
sanctions, as Washington claims Huawei has close ties to China's military and
that Beijing could use its equipment for espionage -- accusations the company
denies.
Britain and Sweden have banned the use of Huawei equipment
in their 5G networks, while France has also imposed restrictions.
Yet Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates have not only chosen Huawei for their 5G rollouts, but have also
partnered with the company to develop "smart cities."
These feature enhanced digital services and security
surveillance -- a Huawei speciality Gulf states value highly for monitoring
their populations.
Gulf countries' "use of technologies for population
surveillance is closer to the practices of China than those of Western
countries," said Camille Lons, of the International Institute for
Strategic Studies.
Concerns about Huawei voiced in the US and Europe
"weren't convincing" in the region, she told AFP.
- Mitigating 'political pressures' -
While the telecoms giant has had a strong presence in the
Gulf since the 1990s, its deals and big announcements there have multiplied in
recent years.
In January, Saudi Arabia announced it would open the largest
Huawei store outside China in Riyadh, a few months after a deal with the
company on developing artificial intelligence to support public and private
sector growth.
Last summer, Saudi investment firm Batic cemented a deal
with Huawei to work on "smart city" projects in the kingdom, where it
is already a main partner in the Yanbu Smart Industrial City project on the Red
Sea.
Huawei has also developed apps and digital infrastructure to
support Muslim pilgrims visiting Mecca and Medina, Islam's two holiest sites.
"By gaining the trust of our partners in the Middle
East, we have been able to mitigate external political pressures like those
pursued by the US," Charles Yang, Huawei's Middle East chief, told AFP
from the company's headquarters in Dubai.
In the high-tech emirate, one of seven that make up the UAE,
Huawei has launched projects ranging from data storage to online payment
services for public transport networks.
Dubai-based Emirates, the Middle East's largest airline,
last year chose Huawei to build a centre to boost the company's surveillance
and security capabilities.
An Emirates spokesperson declined to elaborate on the
precise nature of the technology, but said "such solutions are utilised...
around the world primarily for public safety and security reasons".
- 'Risk' for the US -
China remains one of the Gulf's leading trade partners.
UN figures show its 2019 trade with Saudi Arabia -- the
world's largest exporter of crude oil -- reached about $36.4 billion, while
with the UAE it exceeded $50 billion.
"Digital infrastructure has become a key pillar of
(Gulf states') national transformation strategies," Yang said.
Huawei said this month it hoped for a reset with Washington,
after former US president Donald Trump targeted the firm as part of an
intensifying China-US trade and technology standoff.
But Lons from the International Institute for Strategic
Studies warned the apparent Huawei-Gulf honeymoon could cause security worries
for the US.
She noted the presence of American military bases in the
region, and that Gulf countries are "major buyers of US military equipment".
There could be concerns about the "risk that sensitive
US military information or technology is being spied on and transferred to
China", she said.
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