GT&T shares buyer linked to Chinese military
China’s Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group has been identified as the Hong Kong-based buyer of 20 per cent of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T).
The name had remained obscured as a result of the confidentiality agreement which was entered to in early 2011 with the Guyana Government.
Another of the Chinese Companies associated with Guyana’s telecommunications industry is Huawei Technologies Ltd.
This is the company that has been contracted to undertake the Guyana LTE network which comes with the Government’s fibre optic cable and both Chinese telecommunication providers have been linked to the Peoples Liberation Army – the Chinese military.
Both companies had raised eyebrows in October 2011 when a US Pentagon report fingered both companies as being linked to the Chinese Military and as a Chinese Government ‘Espionage’ Ministry.
According to a 2011 Washington Times Publication, “A U.S. intelligence report for the first time links China’s largest telecommunications company (Huawei Technologies Ltd.) to Beijing’s KGB-like intelligence service and says the company recently received nearly a quarter-billion dollars from the Chinese government.”
At the time of the report the Huawei Technologies Ltd was attempting to break into the US market and had been blocked on three previous occasions.
See Washington Times report http://www.washingtontimes.com...y-ministry/?page=all
The report by the CIA-based Open Source Center stated that Huawei’s chairwoman, Sun Yafang, worked for the Ministry of State Security (MSS) Communications Department before joining the company.
Huawei’s links to the Chinese military have been disclosed previously. The Open Source Center (OSC) report provides the first details of its links to Chinese intelligence, which U.S. officials have said has been engaged in a massive effort to acquire secrets and economic intelligence from government and private-sector computer networks around the world.
The co-presidents of Huawei are on record as saying that, Huawei is an “employee-owned” company, and China’s government and military do not hold any shares or control the company.
“However, the Pentagon’s latest annual report on the Chinese military said China’s industry, including Huawei, is closely integrated with the military. “Information technology companies in particular, including Huawei, Datang and Zhongxing, maintain close ties to the PLA [People’s Liberation Army],” the report says.”
Datang is the company which has been identified as the buyer of the GT&T shares, but this has not been confirmed by the Government of Guyana close to one week after the announcement was made.
Datang is one of China’s showpiece hi-tech companies that specialises in the development, production and sale of electronic information systems and equipment. Founded in 1999, the company is reportedly managed by the Chinese State-run Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.
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Better the Chinese than the Atlantic Tele-Ntework.