Guo Ping, the chairman of Huawei. Reuters

Huawei's chairman, Guo Ping, has lashed out at the US, saying the country had "no evidence, nothing," that the firm spied on behalf of the Chinese government.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress, Guo said Huawei had never planted backdoors in its equipment and would not allow third parties to meddle with its kit.

MWC has become a battleground between the US and Huawei, with US cybersecurity officials also in attendance and likely to be lobbying against the Chinese firm.

Guo also criticized a new, wide-reaching American law that allows the US government to demand data stored with Amazon, Microsoft, or other cloud providers.

Huawei has stepped up its war of words with the US at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, as the electronics giant tries to convince international governments and mobile operators that it doesn't spy on people for the Chinese government.

Huawei's chairman, Guo Ping, gave a keynote at the conference on Tuesday, most of which was spent pitching Huawei's 5G wireless technologies. But he closed the speech by lashing out at the US.

"Huawei has a strong track record in security in three decades," he said. "Three billion people around the world. The US security accusations of our 5G has no evidence, nothing."

Read more: Here's a close-up look at Huawei's $2,600 folding phone, the Mate X

Guo went a step further to criticize the US Cloud Act, an American law enacted in 2018 that requires Amazon, Microsoft, and other cloud providers to hand over data on customers when requested by the government. It applies no matter where the data is hosted and could give the US access to huge amounts of data on European citizens - something that has alarmed the European Union, according to Bloomberg.

Guo called it an "irony" that the Cloud Act allowed the US to access data across borders.

"So for best technology and greater security, choose Huawei," Guo said. "Please choose Huawei."

During his speech, Guo showed a slide with the statement "Huawei has not and will never plant backdoors."

Guo told an audience at MWC 2019 that the company didn't spy on its customers. Shona Ghosh/Business Insider

"Let me say this as clearly as possible," Guo said. "Huawei has not and we will never plant backdoors, and we will never allow anyone to do so on our equipment. We take this responsibility very seriously. Carriers are responsible for the secure operations of their own networks. Carriers can prevent outside attacks."

Guo also mentioned President Donald Trump's remarks about 5G, the fifth and latest generation of wireless technology, saying the US did need faster networks.

The US government has been lobbying its allies to reconsider allowing Huawei equipment into their 5G networks. The fear is that Huawei's kit is compromised and might allow the Chinese government to spy on people. There are also jitters about putting so much of the Western world's critical mobile infrastructure into Chinese hands.

American lobbying efforts appear to be extending to Mobile World Congress, the world's biggest annual gathering of mobile operators and equipment providers. America's top cybersecurity official, Robert Strayer, is at the conference and has previously made a strong case against Huawei.

"A country that uses data in the way China has - to surveil its citizens, to set up credit scores, and to imprison more than 1 million people for their ethnic and religious background - should give us pause about the way that country might use data in the future," Strayer said earlier this month, according to The Washington Post. "It would be naive to think that country, [given] the influence it has over its companies, would act in ways that would treat our citizens better than it treats its own citizens."

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