Huawei’s funding of British and Chinese universities raises security fears
Experts fear that Britain’s academics may unwittingly be helping Beijing on the road to military supremacy
HUAWEI is facing a fresh row over its influence in the UK, after a Daily Telegraph investigation found that it backed a string of technology projects linking British universities with Chinese universities that are heavily involved in military research.
This newspaper can reveal that the Chinese telecoms giant funded or coauthored at least 17 scientific papers with UK universities about cuttingedge “dual use” technologies, which can have civilian applications but can also be used in military technology.
Some of the technology could be used to communicate with swarms of drones or on highly advanced image recognition software that could potentially be used for extreme levels of surveillance, according to analysis by three experts commissioned by this newspaper.
The disclosures were made as China faces growing international hostility amid concerns that the authorities attempted to cover up the coronavirus crisis in its very early stages and intense criticism over its treatment of citizens in Hong Kong.
In Britain, as revealed last week, ministers are reconsidering their relationship with China in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, and drawing up plans to reduce Huawei’s involvement in UK infrastructure to zero by 2023.
The Telegraph’s findings will raise concerns over Huawei’s other forms of influence in Britain.
Experts fear that UK universities may inadvertently sign up to projects whose work – published and unpublished – could compromise national security, or support an oppressive regime. Tom Tugendhat, Conservative MP and chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, said: “This investigation points to another worrying front in a soft war that China has been waging against us. We need to defend ourselves. The UK cannot be an unwitting partner with a regime that does not share our values and works against our interests.”
Huawei has strongly disputed analysis of the papers by academics with specialisms in military technology and artificial intelligence. It said that it was a private company, and that the papers identified by The Telegraph focused on “common areas of research for telecoms equipment suppliers”. It also had “strict rules” in place specifying that the research and development it funds at universities is for civilian use, a spokesman said.
“We do not conduct military research either directly, or indirectly, nor do we work on military or intelligence projects for the Chinese government or any other government.”
With its cast iron replica of Budapest’s Liberty Bridge and pale-stoned version of Versailles, visitors to Huawei’s research centre in Dongguan could be forgiven for thinking they were in Europe.
It is a benign – if eccentric – tribute. But other attempts to forge close ties with Western culture have much more serious implications.
The Daily Telegraph can disclose today that the Chinese telecoms giant backed 17 scientific papers with UK universities, about cutting-edge “dual use” technologies, which have civilian applications but can also be used in military technology.
At least 15 of the papers focused on technology that experts claim could be used to communicate with drones or on advanced image recognition software that it is claimed could be used for extreme levels of surveillance.
All involve collaborations between British universities, and Chinese counterparts that are involved in military research and named as “high risk” by an Australian think tank.
The Telegraph’s findings today will raise fresh concerns over Huawei’s influence in Britain. Experts have also warned that Beijing may be using Huawei and UK universities to advance China’s defence programme and a surveillance regime known for its breaches of human rights. Alex Joske, a China expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, said: “Chinese military universities are collaborating with Western institutions to take advantage of their expertise, resources and training to advance its military technology.”
In one instance, academics at the University of Kent accepted Huawei funding for joint research on tiny antennae which, according to experts commissioned by The Telegraph, could “get a swarm of drones to communicate with each other”. The study was done jointly with a known defence laboratory at the University of Electronic Science and Technology in Chengdu.
A spokesman for Kent University said the paper “has military as well as civilian applications, just as many other engineering areas”, that it respects all UK trade restrictions and that its students always declare any support from Huawei.
Huawei strongly disputed analysis of the papers by the three experts, and insisted the technologies they focused on were all “common areas of research for telecoms equipment suppliers”. A spokesman said: “Huawei is a private company that supplies telecoms companies globally. We do not conduct military research either directly or indirectly, nor do we work on military or intelligence projects for the Chinese government or any other government”. Huawei had “strict rules stipulating research and development co-operation with universities must be for the sole purpose of product development for civilian use”, and dismissed the Australian think tank as having an “anti-huawei agenda”.
But fears are growing that research from these collaborations will be passed to Beijing, where it could be used to bolster China’s extreme surveillance operation in Xinjiang, the province where the government has imprisoned a million ethnic Uighurs.
Experts also fear British academics may unwittingly be working on technologies to bolster China’s ambition to become the most advanced military power in the world by 2049.
Last night, experts called for a shake-up of funding rules.
Prof Anthony Glees, director of the centre for security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, said universities should disclose funding deals. He added: “It should be illegal to accept funding from China in areas where there is a military or national security relevance.”
Charles Parton, senior associate fellow at the defence and security think tank RUSI, said: “Research with China is not going to be black and white. We are talking about fifty shades of grey, and it is the Government’s role to set up a mechanism for ruling which shades of grey are acceptable.”
Most universities have ethics boards to oversee funding, but there are no national standards for vetting funding before research takes place. The standard practice is for academics to declare their research partners and funding sources upon publication.
In the US, universities must declare any benefits or contracts with “a foreign source” worth $250,000 or more a year. In Europe, the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity demands “researchers review” funding submissions “in a transparent and justifiable manner”. The papers backed by Huawei and examined by The Telegraph were produced jointly with Chinese universities with specialisms in defence technology, which are ultimately controlled by Beijing or its military.
The Telegraph
technology and artificial intelligence – to examine 18 publicly available studies undertaken by UK universities with Chinese defence institutions.
At least 17 were “dual-use”, so could be used for civilian services as well as warfare or extreme surveillance.
Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said academics had to ask “more demanding questions” about research partners as “the same algorithms you use to unlock your smartphone are now potentially being used to help kill people.”
Bart Selman, professor of computer science at Cornell University in the US, said a number of papers were about technology to improve communication between “swarms of drones”.
Another specialist – an expert on military technology who declined to be named for fear of repercussions – said it was “almost impossible to deny a pattern of research” across the papers that could build up China’s “repressive technology capabilities”.
All papers were backed by Huawei in some way – half via direct funding and nearly half by Huawei researchers working on them. Five were joint projects with China’s National University of Defence Technology – the in-house university of the People’s Liberation Army.
Ten were completed with Chinese universities that are part of Beijing’s “Seven Sons of National Defence” institutions – which advance China’s defence industry and are controlled by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The remaining three were co-authored by academics in known Chinese defence laboratories. Some of the universities face sanctions from the US and Japan because of their relationship with China’s military.
One 2019 paper, Unequal Error Protection SCMA Codebooks, was a joint project between the University of Surrey, Huawei and the National University of Defence Technology. Experts said it could reduce power usage while helping communications between drones. A spokesman for Surrey university said Huawei was one of five supporters of its 5G Innovation Centre, which researches “machine to machine communications – commonly known as the Internet of Things. This research paper, alongside hundreds of others on the same topic publicly available, looks at this important application of 5G technologies”.
The experts also highlighted a paper by academics at Lancaster University and the University of East Anglia, who worked with scientists from Huawei and Beihang University, an institution under sanction by the US for its extensive work on rockets and drones.
The 2017 study, Recognition Using 3D Histograms of Texture and A Multiclass Boosting Classifier, involves programming cameras or drones that can recognise human actions which, experts say, is useful both for video surveillance and developing autonomous weapons. Dr Walsh called the paper “troubling”.
Lancaster academic Jungong Han, who worked on the paper in question, insisted the research had no military application, was “completely done in China”, and his role was to provide “feedback on paper writing”. He added that Huawei might not have even known its researcher was involved.
A spokesman for Lancaster University said it did not receive Huawei funding for the paper and that it had “multiple potential applications”.
A spokesman for University of East Anglia (UEA) said the researcher involved in the work had left the university and that it “was likely begun before [the researcher] arrived at UEA”.