Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei on Friday dismissed as unfounded American claims that it was putting cyber security at risk, adding it hopes that the Croatian government would not discriminate against it when building its 5G network.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday told the Croatian state news agency Hina in an interview that the United States of America requested that Croatia should not hand over its strategic projects to the Chinese because national security must be a priority and must not be put at risk.

In its response, Huawei Technologies said that it strongly denied US government’s accusations because the USA had not proved any of the allegations against it.

We appreciate the open and fair business environment Croatia has created for all multinational companies and we hope that the country will continue to apply a non-discriminatory approach to all suppliers of cyber equipment, requiring everyone to comply equally with EU 5G cybersecurity standards, the press release said.

Huawei said that political tactics for achieving hegemony in a global competition, such as excluding certain vendors due to their country of origin, were not effective in the fight for cybersecurity, as that was a technical issue that needed to be addressed by technical means.

The company recalled that in the past 30 years it had delivered equipment used by 3 billion people all over the world and stressed that no malicious cybersecurity incident had ever occurred due to the use of its equipment.

We always adhere to international and local laws, regulations and rules of business ethics, Huawei said.

The US administration is concerned about the spread of Chinese influence and Huawei’s participation in the construction of 5G Internet networks in the world, and it says that the Chinese telecommunications giant would hand over data to Beijing, which would use it for espionage.