Huawei denies spying allegations but claims it will take up to five years to improve product security

Huawei responds to MPs' Science and Technology Select Committee letter with promise to invest $2bn improving product security

Huawei has responded to the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee, admitting that there is "room for improvement" in some of its product design processes, but denying that its products are, or have ever been, used for espionage.

And the company added that it will invest $2 billion over the next five years in a bid to improve the security of its products.

In the letter to the Committee, Ryan Ding, president of Huawei's carrier business group, said that the effort to address security issues could take around three to five years to produce desired results.

"Enhancing our software engineering capabilities is like replacing components on a high-speed train in motion," Ryan Ding argued in the letter. "It is a complicated and involved process, and will take at least three to five years to see tangible results. We hope the UK government can understand this."

Governments in some countries have labelled Huawei as a security threat, but they have never substantiated these allegations

Deng also claimed that governments banning Huawei products from 5G networks and telecoms infrastructure had no evidence on which to base their decisions, and added that the position was not as straightforward as reports had suggested.

"Governments in some countries have labelled Huawei as a security threat, but they have never substantiated these allegations with solid evidence," wrote Ding.

Canada, he continued, had not yet taken any restrictive measures, New Zealand had simply turned down a 5G proposal - but the regulatory process was continuing - and Australia had invoked "extra requirements for the supply of 5G products".

Even the US, which has advised allies not to trust Huawei hardware, "only restricts the use of federal funds to buy our networking hardware and services; there are no legislative restrictions on Huawei's business activities".

The letter from the Committee is based on widely aired concerns that Huawei could be used by China's government as a tool for espionage, forced to use its position at the heart of communications networks worldwide by China's 2017 National Intelligence Law.

This wide-ranging law legally obliges Chinese citizens and organisations to aid the intelligence services, when requested, without question.

However, it is not just Huawei that has been at the centre of security claims. There have also been several instances of internet traffic being hijacked and re-routed via China, seemingly by China Telecom utilising its privileged position in countries' internet points-of-presence.

In the UK, the pressure on Huawei was ratcheted-up following the release of a report by the National Cyber Security Council (NCSC) last July, which claimed that there were a number of security issues with Huawei's networking hardware, highlighted by the work of the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC).

In the letter, Ding claimed that the company had moved to integrate security into all its business processes, including research and development, sales and marketing, project delivery, supply chain and technical services.

Ding's letter comes in the same week that the company has been accused, again, of conducting industrial espionage. Following a sting operation at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada last month, the inventor of a new product called Diamond Glass claims that the company had had the product exported to China and tested with a military laser.

Back in 2013, the former head of the US National Security Agency, General Michael Hayden, claimed that Huawei had shared "intimate and extensive knowledge of foreign telecommunications systems" with security agencies in China.