Liu told the DigitALL Chinese New Year Celebrations held in Brussels last Thursday that Europe had become a "second home" for the Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor.

"We now have 12,000 employees in Europe and over 70% of them are hired locally," he said. "In 2018, we procured US$6.3 billion worth of goods and services in Europe.

"We also have established research partnership with over 140 top universities and organisations in Europe to help boost the research capabilities in Europe."

He said Huawei had come under constant attack by some countries and politicians recently. "For example, yesterday the US ambassador to the European Union Mr [Gordon] Sondland says someone in Beijing can remotely run a certain car off the road that's on the 5G network and kill the person that's in it," Liu said.

"This is an insult to people’s intelligence let alone the technology experts across Europe."

Huawei had an excellent record in cyber security around the globe, he said. "Our devices have never caused any serious cyber security breaches which [has] also [been] proved by strict reviews from multiple regulators and operators.

"Our partners, including Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom, Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica, and Proximus, have publicly endorsed their trust in Huawei. I applaud [them] for these sensible approaches."

Liu advocated that cyber security should remain a technical issue instead of an ideological issue. "Because technical issues can always be resolved through the right solutions while ideological issue cannot," he said.

"By excluding Huawei from the market, doesn’t mean the network is safe. For example, since Huawei's equipment is not used in the US networks, is the US having the most secure networks in the world? The answer is no! Cyber security is a common issue shared by the entire world and industry, and it requires the joint effort of all to face it."

Liu said that despite Huawei's security record, there was still room for the company to improve its software engineering capabilities. "To this end, Huawei has put forward a software engineering capability enhancement program as an important part of the company's Integrated Product Development 2.0 transformation, and will allocate €1.75 billion within five years to this program," he added.

"In addition, we will open the Huawei Cybersecurity Centre in Brussels next month. Through this new centre, we hope to demonstrate in a more transparent way that we are part of the solution not part of the problem."