- "Shady" link to broadband frontrunner
- "Spy fears" could threaten bid
- Frontrunner, Singtel Optus, tight-lipped
NATIONAL security concerns about Chinese espionage could threaten the new frontrunner for Australia's $15 billion publicly backed national broadband network, The Australian reports.
Security agencies will closely examine the bid lodged by Singtel Optus, which is believed to propose the involvement of Chinese telecommunications equipment-maker Huawei Technologies to help build its network.
Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin has called on the Government to explain the allegations.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy must state whether Optus had close links to Huawei, Senator Minchin said, adding that Australians needed to be assured the new network was free of any potential for cyber espionage.
Huawei was the subject of a US congressional investigation on national security grounds this year after legislators expressed concern about its links to the Chinese military and intelligence apparatus.
The concerns led Huawei to withdraw from its joint $US2.2billion ($3.3billion) bid to buy a stake in US internet router and networking giant 3Com.
Optus emerged this week as the surprise frontrunner for the national broadband network tender when the Government excluded Telstra from the tender process after its bid failed to meet some of the project's stated requirements.
Huawei, the shadowy company based in Shenzen and founded by former People's Liberation Army officer and Communist Party member Ren Zhengfei, has triggered debate in the US, Britain and India about whether it is a legitimate international telecom player or a company bent on doing Beijing's bidding.
Intelligence agency concerns about Chinese cyber-espionage prompted India to scrap a planned $US60 million Huawei investment in its telco in 2005.
Britain granted the company a $US140 million contract in that same year to build part of British Telecom's 21st Century Network.
Many mainstream global telecommunications companies, including Singtel Optus, already have close links with Huawei.
Optus last month gave the Government its 900-page bid for the new national broadband network, which is understood to propose Huawei as one of several vendors to set up the network.
A spokeswoman for Optus confirmed the company had been working with Huawei as part of trials for the network, but would neither confirm nor deny Huawei was part of last month's final bid.
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