Hikvision CEO Admits Hikvision China State-Owned Company
By John Honovich, Published Oct 06, 2016, 10:16am EDTHikvision's CEO admitted that Hikvision is a China state-owned company, during a 2015 visit to Hikvision from Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China.
This was reported in the official website of the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, which is "controlled directly by the central government." The report was written in English.
Hikvision CEO Chen Zongnian said:
“President XI’s visited means a full appreciation and support for CETC group and HIKVISION. As a state- owned company, we understand that reform and transformation cannot be accomplished in one day and should continue. In the future, we will still do our best to fulfill our mission and take responsibilities for our society and government.” [IPVM Emphasis Added]
Chen, Chairman and Communist Party Secretary of Hikvision as well, has also declared:
"Every party member must consciously accept the [Communist] party's leadership, effectively strengthening the party's leadership, strengthen the Party's vitality, comply with party discipline.... All Party members united as one, as "personal dream", "Hikvision Dream", "China Dream" and efforts!" [IPVM emphasis added]
This is consistent with our reporting on Hikvision's origins and Hikvision's financial report disclosing that the Chinese government is their 'controlling shareholder'.
Message to Hikvision Partners
We recognize many Hikvision partner's frustrations with our continued reporting. We do so because (1) Hikvision 'overseas' marketing continues to deny this and (2) because we continue to find definitive evidence to prove to you that this is true.
Tell the Truth Hikvision Overseas
Perhaps the 'overseas' Hikvision marketing staff suffer from a combination of willful ignorance and Hikvision Hanghzhou HQ hiding information from them.
Regardless, the evidence is clear, and the false assertions of Hikvision's independence and that Hikvision is not a state owned / controlled organization should stop.
As soon as that is done, we can all focus on the more complicated and important question of what Hikvision's Chinese government control means for 'overseas' buyers.
38 reports cite this report:
Comments (111)
Has there been a difinitive test to confirm that if we change default passwords, hacking threats are minimized? They are obviously using these systems in China to spy on citizens (proven in recent article). Are they doing it overseas?
Why are we not treating this much like eventually happened when the Chinese were dumping steel in to the US?

10/06/16 03:21pm
How many articles do we need about this, honestly? The horse has been beaten to death already. John, are there people who try to deny this?

10/06/16 04:01pm
As an independent and publicly traded corporation, Hikvision has a diverse set of private and public shareholders. As of June 30, 2016, 41.88% of Hikvision’s shares are jointly owned by China Electronics Technology HIK Group Co., Ltd. (CETHIK) and CETC No. 52 Research Institute, both are part of CETC, a state-owned enterprise
Source: http://www.hikvision.com/en/about_694.html
Seems like that is both factual and acknowledges the public ownership.
Hikvision employee sounds off on being state-owned:
This is, at least, a more honest approach, though certainly many do care.
10/06/16 04:49pm
I see the war of 2 Johns here :|
Dillabaugh, I hold you in high regard, but I have to disagree with you and take the side of Honovich here. He's asking for accountability and transparency (hilariously from a Chinese Communist Party owned company) from Hikvision in their international and North American representation to fully admit the nature of their upper management/ownership in China as a STATE OWNED COMPANY.
It does matter to a number of us and I would prefer to not be watched by the same government that drove my father and his family out from Chi Tung and dragged my mother's grandfather out to be publicly stoned to death for just owning a patch of land. It may sound petty and personal, but that ****ing matters to me deeply.
Are they the same people as who is in charge now? Yes, they just settled in and got comfortable. That government currently restricts the free speech of its masses, gives its people no real voting power and no political options besides complying with the party, and does little to ensure that companies within its borders respect the intellectual property of companies abroad.
As bad as things are in the USA, I am thankful I am not in China, because I can at least speak out about our problems here and criticize the people who get us into our messes. I am also thankful that our capitalism (while unfortunately in the process of an oligarchical takeover) is not unbalanced by state run businesses that stifle competition and innovation.
This specifically matters in our line of work because this Chinese Communist Party run business makes surveillance devices which have the power to collect information on their behalf, no matter how much we can pretend to ourselves that we can block off their not-so-imaginary back-doors. This enables them to steal state secrets, corporate secrets, and even more intellectual property than they already do AND monitor their detractors world-wide.
I know you are smart Dillabaugh. I know you trust in your abilities, but can you be 100% sure that this government is not capable of getting around all of your preventative measure to access the products THEY DESIGNED AND PROGRAMMED for their own nefarious purposes? I don't live in that comfort zone. That's for sure.
my personal favorite quote form the President Xi
Mr. Xi ultimately said China must find a middle ground and determine “which things can be imported but have to be secure and controllable; which things may be imported, digested and absorbed for re-innovation; which things can be developed in collaboration with others; and for which things we must rely on our own strength and indigenous innovation.”
Congrats the communist leader just admitted china's goal is to steal and re-brand anything they can. and since Hikvison is a state-owned enterprise.....
Although I wonder how how far and to what end his "re-innovation" that he speaks of really goes.
point is china is going though our imports looking for exploits...
china owns Hikvision and we are bad evil "fill in the blank" -phobes/-ists not to be worried or avoid government owned electronics?
China’s impunity remains the most serious result of the current failed policy. The administration in 2014 indicted a small group of Chinese military hackers with little or no prospect of ever prosecuting them. To date, there have been no sanctions imposed for China’s hack on the Office of Personnel Management. Obama was ready to sanction the Chinese government for the OPM attack in September, but backed off after a promise from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to curb government-backed cyber economic espionage—a promise that does not cover the Big Data intelligence gathering that took place in the OPM hack, and which is beginning to affect U.S. intelligence personnel.
good thing it was to curb it right? although not as good as end it but hey we have the NSA and only god and snowden knows what they do.
can you imagine all those linux ARM devices with root level access playing around in your network? even if its a DOS attack?
no I am sure I am just being paranoid. he said he would curb that kinda stuff........
Message to HikvisionPartners
We recognize many Hikvision partner's frustration with our continued reporting. We do so because (1) Hikvision 'overseas' marketing continues to deny this and (2) because we continue to find definitive evidence to prove to you that this is true.
Infinite loop
I don't understand why you have never bothered to post this paragraph on Hikvision's own website, in plain English it states its corporate structure and ownership:
1. Hikvision corporate governance structure
As an independent and publicly traded corporation, Hikvision has a diverse set of private and public shareholders. As of June 30, 2016, 41.88% of Hikvision’s shares are jointly owned by China Electronics Technology HIK Group Co., Ltd. (CETHIK) and CETC No. 52 Research Institute, both are part of CETC, a state-owned enterprise; 18.28% is privately owned by Mr. Kung Hung Ka (a Hong Kong permanent resident); 8.48% is owned by the company’s founders and executives; and the remaining 31.36% is owned by A-shares investors; International institutional investors such as UBS AG and JP Morgan are among Hikvision’s top 10 shareholders. Currently, Hikvision’s Board of Directors consists of eight directors, three of whom are independent directors. Five non-independent directors include Mr. Chen Zongnian and Mr. Liu Xiang designated by CETHIK and CETC No. 52 Research Institute; Mr. Kung Hung Ka, the founding shareholder; and, Mr. Hu Yangzhong and Mr. Wu Weiqi on behalf of the Company’s senior management team. The three independent directors are Mr. Cheng Tien-Chong, former president of Hewlett-Packard China, president of Texas Instruments Asia Pacific, and vice president of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. in Taiwan; Mr. Wang Zhidong, founder of SINA Corporation listed on NASDAQ; and Mr. Lu Jianzhong, a former partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
This is the very first paragraph on the company about page: http://www.hikvision.com/us/about_10741.html
Hiding? Hardly.
Clear winner from the in-depth IPVM coverage of Hika-gate:
Avigilon
So, to clarify; the guy here (Jason Yang) - in an interview with the heading 'A Trusted Partner' - is telling a bare-faced, out & out lie?
I heard from another 2 Hikvision people today about this, with them criticizing us for 'old news'.
I do find that a fascinating response since their Corporate response is that this is not 'old news' but wrong. I'd love to see Hikvision corporate address this article from the government parent company (CETC).
Well there's a point 41 percent anywhere in the world I had companies is not control. Now you can argue that the managers have enough shares to put them over the magic number of 50 percent and one share to have control. This may or may not happen although it might be bad for the managers health to go against the largest shareholders, but who know stranger things have happen in the world

10/11/16 01:08am
This link shows the Chinese gov owns 54.2%....
So - just to be clear here - we've allowed a Foreign Owned corporation (by a government that is less than friendly to the US way of life) to place their product in our secure facilities in the DOD / State Department / Embassies and we're okay with this?
Well, sell the farm Martha - might as well close up shop - the barbarians are at the gate.
(Insert abject despair here)
This won't end - ever - until we get a backbone and DEMAND our Federal Government enforce the laws on the books in regard to procuring from Chinese vendors.
Hikvision has now run the same denial in SourceSecurity. It is attributed to a different Hikvision employee but largely identical claims / language.
Quote from the article...
Why wait? I care more about what this potentially means for overseas buyers? Why not start reporting on this which I believe could be the more important issue. Perhaps, perhaps not?
Every country has values they want their citizens to follow. India had a much larger industrial output just a few years ago, but China has had the discipline and sacrifice to do the worlds bidding and succeed. They did this with central control but China is actually the wild west or wild east.
I think it was Napoleon that said not to awake the sleeping dragon and darn Richard Nixon was a student of history!