Amid the West imposing restrictions on China’s technology fearing surveillance and other security hassles, Beijing is trying to increase its digital and security companies’ engagement with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others, The Singapore Post reported.
According to the website, the Qatar Ministry is now offering its CCTV surveillance markets to China.
Hikvision and Dahua are the two prominent Chinese CCTV/video surveillance companies that have been present in Qatari CCTV Surveillance system since 2016.
Recently, Qatar’s Ministry of Interior sought to bid for the ‘face recognition technology’ enabled CCTV systems and as per the publication, this process seems to be a formal procedure as China’s Hikvision has already introduced this technology to Qatar, according to The Singapore Post.
The Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd. (HIKVISION), a subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Corporation (CETC), is bidding for the intelligent traffic management system, which will upgrade the overall traffic architecture and that also at the Saudi Riyal 18 million.
The Chinese company also supplies video surveillance equipment for civil and military purposes.
Even the recent visit of China’s President Xi Jinping caught global attention for the signing of several strategic deals, including with the tech giant Huawei. The Huawei Technologies deal is related to cloud computing, data centres and building high-tech complexes in Saudi cities. The Saudi media estimate that the value of agreements signed totals about USD 30 billion.
The China-Saudi deal comes in the wake of the US recently imposing a ban on approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE, citing national security risks and despite Washington’s advice to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States not to be tempted by the commercial “carrot” offered by Beijing, reported The Singapore Post.
Around the globe, evidence has been found in security flaws and vulnerabilities of Chinese products, which are easy for hackers to take control of, operate remotely and use to spy and garner intrusive information on the nation’s civilians and infrastructure. However, countries in the Middle East are apparently ignoring these warnings.
While the West and Europe are banning Chinese digital equipment fearing national security threats and data breaches, Middle Eastern countries are knowingly accepting them due to the urgency of developing digital infrastructure and in fear of losing investment from China if its digital companies are not allowed, The Singapore Post reported.
However, how long the bonhomie could continue without breach of data and penetration in the systems of these users is to be seen as China is known for exploiting vulnerabilities of the client countries strategically, the report stated.