Huawei would refuse to hand over data on Australian users to China because complying with such an order would be “completely illegal”, its Australian chairman has claimed.

John Lord made the comment at the National Press Club on Wednesday, an outing in which he struggled to explain the requirements of Chinese law and to account for security assessments that have contributed to a hardening attitude to Huawei taking part in the build of the 5G network in Australia.

In a pitch to the Australian government, Lord said locking Huawei out of the 5G build, as it is expected to do, would be a “short-term, small-minded” choice that would impact Australia’s productivity and economic competitiveness.

Last week the chair of the parliamentary joint committee on foreign affairs and trade, Liberal senator David Fawcett, urged the Coalition party room to reject Huawei’s involvement and publicly cited Chinese laws that require cooperation in intelligence work as cause for concern.

Lord said many security concerns about the Chinese telco – which is a private company owned by 80,000 of its employees – were “uninformed or just plain wrong”.

He claimed that Chinese national intelligence laws contained safeguards that allow refusal of cooperation where it contradicted “legitimate rights and interests”.

“And that law has no legitimacy outside China,” he said. “We obey the laws of every country in which we operate – in Australia we follow Australian laws.”

Lord argued that the global supply chain meant that many telcos and internet giants had components made in China, and name-checked Nokia and Samsung as companies that also had a “communist party branch” as required by Chinese law.

Lord said he “couldn’t answer” a question about whether article 38 of Chinese cyber security laws would require the company to report a vulnerability to the Chinese government that could allow cyber attacks on Australian customers, suggesting it was hypothetical, but admitted he is not familiar with the clause.

“We’ve had legal advice ... our understanding is that Huawei would be able to continue its mode of operations now, as it does, checking every product is 100% clear and providing it to a country and that country can carry out further checks,” he said.

Lord noted that carriers in Australia have been using Huawei equipment for nearly 15 years “and there has never been any issue that could affect national security”.

Lord offered to set up evaluation facilities in Australia for security-cleared personnel to check its code and hardware to verify it did not contain malicious code or vulnerabilities, as it has done in the United Kingdom and Canada.

When asked how Huawei Australia would resist an order to hand over Australians’ data to the Chinese government, Lord replied it “won’t do it because that’s completely illegal – not on Australian customers in Australia”.

“We’ve set up our company now to retain the Australian data in Australia ... To make sure that data is safe and secure here in Australia,” he said.

“So, there is no reason for us to pass lots of data back to China.”

Lord said Huawei had a different understanding of the law to “some of the views expressed in the media recently” and was aware of both its responsibilities in China and other countries’ expectation of security.

“And that’s what we will guarantee. Within that country, any information coming through us and any equipment we put into their national infrastructure is safe to the best of our ability and it’s secure.”

Lord said it was a “matter of supposition” that intelligence reports were encouraging the government to block Huawei, adding he had not been told by one minister or person in “real authority” about such concerns.

“I am concerned [security agencies] have a lot of information coming to Australia from overseas and it’s not proven,” he said. “I’d hate for that to taint any decision in Australia.”

Lord said Australia “cannot sit back and think it can isolate itself from the technology rise of Asia”.

“There is no doubt more Huaweis are coming. We can’t pretend the rise of smart China is not going to happen and that it’s going to stop here.”