EU must be aware of China's intelligence law when drawing up 5G rules: King

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – China’s National Intelligence Law, which requires Chinese citizens to support state information-gathering, cannot be ignored by the European Union as it draws up rules to protect mobile networks, an EU commissioner said on Friday.

“When we think about the overall security of products and supplies from different sources, we can think of their legal regime,” Julian King, the EU’s commissioner for security, told a news conference.

“In China, they have a national intelligence law that puts broad requirements on organizations to support and collaborate on national intelligence work and it’s a particular legal legislative framework which is relevant,” he said.

EU governments are discussing proposals that could ban some Huawei Technologies Co. [HWT.UL] equipment for next-generation mobile networks, although that is only one option on the table.