Chinese diplomats denounce Pompeo's slander

China's top diplomat to the European Union on Wednesday slammed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his disinformation campaign against China and Chinese telecom company Huawei.

In an op-ed published on the Politico website on Monday, Pompeo, a former CIA chief, accused Huawei of maintaining links to China's People's Liberation Army, engaging in espionage and posing a security threat, without providing any specific evidence.

Zhang Ming, head of the China Mission to the EU, said that Pompeo was "trying to win hearts and minds of the Europeans with his long list of fake news".

"It is the latest example that the top US diplomat has been upping the ante to sling the mud on China," he wrote in a letter to the editor published in Politico on Wednesday. Pompeo has made multiple trips to Europe this year to pressure and threaten European leaders not to include Huawei in their 5G networks.

Zhang described Pompeo's arguments against Huawei as "a far cry from the truth".

"Despite all the witch hunt and media hype, not a single country or individual has come up with solid evidence to prove that Huawei poses a security threat," he said.

He cited German daily newspaper Der Tagespiegel's report in May that after years of review, the UK government, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security and the European Commission all failed to find any backdoor in Huawei.