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Vice-President of the European Commission Andrus Ansip, Paris, November 12, 2018. REUTERS / Charles Platiau

After the arrest of the financial director of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, the vice president of the European Commission warns about a security risk in Europe concerning Huawei but also other Chinese companies.

" Should we worry about Huawei or other Chinese companies ? Yes, I think we should worry, "because these companies are, according to Andrus Ansip, forced to" cooperate with their intelligence services , "Ansip said at a press conference in Brussels.

" This is not a good sign when companies have to open their systems to secret services ," he said, saying the groups were building chips " to get some of our secrets ."

Huawei has suffered a blow with the arrest in Canada of its financial director and daughter of the founder, at the request of the United States. US authorities would officially suspect the Chinese giant of exporting products to Iran and other countries targeted by US sanctions, but informally, the telephone group is also suspected by Washington of being an undercover agent of power Chinese.

The Chinese company has been under surveillance for a long time and many of its attempts to enter the US telecoms market have failed since 2007. A federal law prohibits government and military officials from using devices built by Huawei and its alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party are often put forward.

Washington has also launched a massive campaign with allied countries to dissuade their companies from using the equipment of the Chinese group. Several countries have closed the door to Huawei, such as Australia and New Zealand and Japanese media reports Friday that Tokyo will ban the use of equipment of the Chinese group by his administration.

Huawei has always ensured its independence and said it has never used its equipment to spy on or sabotage communications in the countries where they are used. This Friday, in a statement, the Chinese said he was " surprised and disappointed " with the concerns expressed by the European Commissioner.

In addition to Huawei, other Chinese companies or their Asian subsidiaries are accused of economic espionage by US justice.

(With AFP)