China lashes out over Huawei fears China

China has accused Britain of harbouring ‘‘deep-rooted pride and prejudice’’ about telecoms giant Huawei that have led to security fears about the company.

The chairman of Huawei has also complained about what he says is ‘‘incredibly unfair treatment’’ of his company abroad – but says the experience will only serve to motivate it to become the global leader in the sector.

The complaints were made after British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson expressed ‘‘grave’’ concerns this week about Huawei being involved in the development of the superfast 5G mobile network in the UK. Chinese state hackers were last week pinpointed as the culprits behind a malicious espionage campaign.

Australia, New Zealand and the United States – members of the Five Eyes intelligence network, with Britain and Canada – have banned the company from supplying the infrastructure for their mobile network upgrades. Washington has urged other Western nations to follow suit.

Wu Qian, the Chinese defence minister’s spokesman, told English-language government newspaper the Global Times that criticism of Huawei in the UK ‘‘reflects local authorities’ deeprooted pride and prejudice, as well as anxiety and confusion’’.

Huawei has strongly denied that it poses any security threat. It said it had ‘‘never been asked by any government to build any back doors or interrupt any networks, and we would never tolerate such behaviour by any of our staff’’.