China Slams Sherman’s Huawei Remarks as ‘Groundless and Denigrating’

A Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson blasted as “groundless and denigrating” remarks by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Africa that countries that choose Huawei for their 5G deployments risk “giving up their sovereignty” by “turning over their data” to the Chinese government. Chinese companies, including Huawei, “have conducted mutually beneficial cooperation with many countries in Africa and the world beyond,” said the spokesperson Monday: “There is not a single case of cybersecurity accident, surveillance or wiretapping in the course of cooperation.” Countries that do business with Huawei “may find themselves bringing in a surveillance capability they didn’t even know was there,” Sherman told African journalists in a digital media briefing Friday from Libreville, Gabon.