Huawei rotating chairman Ken Hu (pictured) urged governments to form tighter coalitions to develop a unified understanding of the evolving cybersecurity challenges and took a swipe at moves to restrict access to China-made equipment.

Speaking at the opening of the company’s seventh Global Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Transparency Centre in Dongguan, China, Hu said standard bodies and technology providers need to work closer together to develop a standards-based coordinated approach across the industry, particularly regarding governance, technical capabilities, certification and collaboration.

“This must be an international effort. We need to set the shared goals, align responsibilities and work together to build a trustworthy technical environment that meets the challenges of today and tomorrow.”

Hu pointed to the common misconception that country of origin affects the security of network equipment and technology. “This simply is not true, and it doesn’t solve the real challenges and prevents us from forming a unified approach.”

The idea is that both trust and distrust should be based on facts, “not feelings, not speculation and not baseless rumours”, he stated.

“Cybersecurity is a complex, evolving challenge requiring close collaboration and information sharing. We need to build capabilities together. No organisation can tackle them all, from standards to governance to verification.”

With increasing cyberattacks, he said all industries are taking cybersecurity more seriously, noting new laws have been passed in 151 countries.

Over the past ten years, Huawei set up similar cybersecurity facilities in Europe, North America and the Middle East.