Huawei, a major Chinese networking enterprise, is presently battling allegations concerning its supposed activities alongside the Beijing government to create massive disturbances to communications within the United Kingdom and other parts of the globe.

Intelligence officials within the UK have raised Cabinet-level concerns over the placement of Huawei-brand paraphernalia within the midst of BT's 21CN network backbone upgrade. To be more specific, they're worried about a hidden, imperceptible "kill switch" that could theoretically immobilize important network communications if the country's relations with China ever deteriorates.

The very same cyber security concerns have hampered the Chinese firm's expansion within India, a large and developing market for networking supplies. Related reports also appeared in 2008 regarding the Australian intelligence institution's investigation of Huawei's contributions in national broadband upgrade work. Moreover, the communications giant uses almost half of its 87,000 employees to do work in development and research of networking technology.

The fears that many a government has over Huawei's products are predictably based upon the circumstances behind the company's establishment. Cyber security experts usually call attention to the organization's mysterious accounting practices and unusual private ownership architecture as proof of its so-called Chinese government connections. Furthermore, Huawei was founded about twenty years ago by Ren Zhengfei, an ex-technology research chief of the People's Liberation Army.

At any rate, Huawei has recently returned fire against the public relations disaster. Representatives from the networking enterprise clarified that they offer commercial public-use telecoms equipment and nothing else. The allegations of research and financial tie-ins with the Chinese government and military are bogus at best, they insisted.

They also argued that Huawei is a 100% privately owned multinational company held entirely by its workforce, so such allegations and rumors are obviously groundless. The government and any government-based organizations have no stake on Huawei. The only government link that the firm has roots in government open biddings, which is a practice that's observed by most top vendors. Furthermore, sales related to the Chinese government only amounted to half of 1% two years ago.

All the same, fears over the creation of whitewalls through BT's Huawei equipment eventually garnered backing from David Blunkett, an ex-Home Secretary that's planning to urge ministers to implement government security auditing upon all Huawei-related hardware and appliances.