Huawei and ZTE, the two Chinese tech giants who are under scanner in many countries the world over on Thursday testified to the House Intelligence Committee and defended themselves saying that the security threat perception against them is unfounded.

But that failed to convince the committee which opened a hearing into "security threats" posed by the two Chinese firms last year.
 
"I was hoping for more transparency, more directness in some of the answers," said Committee chairman Mike Rogers.
 
He said earlier that the reach of the two firms "provide a wealth of opportunities for Chinese intelligence agencies to insert malicious hardware or software implants into critical telecommunications components and systems" and could be required "to cooperate with any request by the Chinese government."
 
Similar sentiments were echoed by Representative Dutch Ruppersberger who said that the firms so far have produced "a lack of direct responses and vague answers" to inquiries from the committee.

"US consumers may have no idea about the national security implications of their purchases, he said

Charles Ding, a corporate senior vice president of Huawei, told the panel said that the firm's success "has been built on entrepreneurship not on favoritism from any government."

"Our customers throughout the world trust Huawei," Ding said in his prepared remarks.

"We will never do anything that undermines that trust."
 
Zhu Jinyun, ZTE's senior vice president for North America and Europe said that ZTE is focused on its success as a multinational company," he said.

"ZTE is not an SOE (state owned enterprise) or government controlled. Indeed, ZTE is China's most independent, transparent, globally focused, publicly traded telecom company", he said.
 
Zhu said he found committee suggestions that it is being used for cyber attacks "very disturbing."