Huawei probed for security, espionage risk

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Jim Lewis: I guess technically, yes, it would be theft.

Cisco accused Huawei of copying one of its network routers, right down to the design flaws and typos in the manual. And Motorola alleged that Huawei recruited its employees to steal company secrets.

Both cases were settled out of court. But the Pentagon and the director of National Intelligence have both identified Chinese actors as the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage.

Bill Plummer: Huawei is Huawei. Huawei is not China.

Bill Plummer is the American face of Huawei, the company's U.S. vice president of external relations and the only executive the home office in Shenzhen would let us speak to. We met him at Huawei's North American headquarters in Plano, Texas.

Bill Plummer: We have the responsibility to clean up 10 years of misinformation and innuendo.

Steve Kroft: What's the misinformation and innuendo?

Bill Plummer: The suggestion that a company by virtue of its heritage or flag of headquarters is somehow more vulnerable than any other company to some sort of mischief.

Plummer told us that Huawei is just another multinational corporation doing business in the United States, no different than Siemens, Samsung or Hyundai.

Bill Plummer: This room is a clean room.

He says Huawei buys six billion dollars in components from American suppliers every year and indirectly employs 35,000 Americans. And he says that the latest telecom gear Huawai hopes to sell in the U.S. poses no threat.

Steve Kroft: One national security expert said that if you build a network like this in another country, you basically have the keys to intercepting their communications. Is that a true statement?

Bill Plummer: Part of that might be a little bit fantastical. But you know, Huawei is a business in the business of doing business -- $32.4 billion in revenues last year across 150 different markets, 70 percent of our business outside of China. Huawei is not going to jeopardize its commercial success for any government, period.

Steve Kroft: What's the relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government?

Bill Plummer: We have a Beijing office. So, you know, we're a regulated industry the same as we are here. You need to be able to interface with government.

Steve Kroft: So you're saying the Chinese government has no influence over Huawei.

Bill Plummer: We're another business doing business in China.

Steve Kroft: If you look at Huawei, it looks like just a big international company with an American face.

Chris Johnson: Yep. And that's the intent.

Until last spring, Chris Johnson was the CIA's top analyst on China, and he's briefed the last three presidents on what's been happening behind the scenes in Beijing. He tells a different story than Huawei's Bill Plummer.