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Huawei and North Korea

Documents obtained by The Washington Post illustrate how the Chinese tech company Huawei, with the Chinese company Panda, quietly helped build and maintain North Korea’s first commercial 3G wireless network, Koryolink. The documents, which include contract data and spreadsheets, showthe relationship spanned several years, including as as recently as 2016.

The information in these spreadsheets was provided by a former Huawei employee who disclosed it on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear of retaliation. It was translated into English from Chinese and scrubbed of all metadata to protect the former employee's identity.

The database from which this material originated tracks Huwaei's telecom projects worldwide. This particular grouping shows projects undertaken by Huawei involving Koryolink and North Korea.

In internal documents and among employees, Huawei referred to certain countries, such as North Korea, Iran and Syria, by code. North Korea was identified as “A9.”

In a statement, Huawei said it “has no business presence” in North Korea. A spokesman declined, however, to address detailed questions, including whether Huawei had conducted business there in the past, either directly or indirectly. He did not dispute the authenticity of these documents, though he also declined to verify them.

Credits:

By Ellen Nakashima, Gerry Shih and John Hudson