Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei’s mobile phone business was on life support in 2020 after the Trump administration launched an economic war against the company. But Huawei has since demonstrated a vampire-like ability to rise from the dead.
Since 2020, Western officials have largely shifted their focus to tackling other Chinese technology threats, most notably TikTok, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Huawei has been quietly making a comeback with several product lines.
Western policymakers need to remain wary of the company. The company has locations around the world and has a near-unique ability to carry out mass surveillance, data theft, and sabotage by the Chinese Communist Party.
In May 2019, the Trump administration recognized Huawei’s near-limitless potential as a tool for Chinese foreign intelligence and placed Huawei on the Commerce Department’s Entity List, making it essential to powering 5G-enabled mobile phones. crippled America’s ability to obtain cutting-edge chips. At the same time, the State Department pledged to U.S. allies and global telecommunications companies to maintain “clean networks,” or protect 5G networks and other technology channels from untrusted vendors such as Huawei and ZTE. I encouraged them to do so.
Ultimately, dozens of American allies and global telecommunications companies rallied behind American leadership and committed to the Clean Networks Initiative. Huawei’s overall revenue decreased by 29 percent from 2020 to 2021, and Huawei mobile phone shipments in 2021 plummeted 81 percent from 2020. The trajectory was set for most developed countries (and perhaps the world) to completely withdraw from Huawei products.
But Huawei is getting a second wind from Europe. Countries that once pledged to ban Huawei from their 5G networks have begun to wobble. In June, European Union technical commissioner Terry Breton said only 10 EU member states had restricted or excluded “high-risk vendors.” Next year, France will be home to Huawei’s first mobile phone equipment factory. In fact, China’s vice prime minister claims that France has decided to extend Huawei’s 5G license in some cities.
While Germany’s political and national security leaders pay a lot of lip service to “risk avoidance” from China, even Germany’s own cybersecurity agency Admitted Prime Minister Olaf Scholz has been debating whether to exclude Huawei from the country’s 5G network throughout 2023, as the country has revealed that it uses Huawei equipment internally. Germany has only recently experienced the dangers of becoming dependent on a rogue regime for essential goods, as it scrambles to make up for the shortfall in gas supplies once provided by Russia. We should not make the same mistakes again in our digital architecture.
Even further away from Europe, Huawei’s cloud services continue to gain market share around the world. To name just one example, in Latin America, “Huawei’s market share has surpassed that of Google, IBM, and Oracle,” reports Bill Wyman of CSIS. According to Huawei’s regional vice president, Huawei’s cloud data center in Riyadh will not only support Saudi government services but also serve as a “bridge to bring other Chinese companies to Saudi Arabia.”
As more of the world’s digital activities take place in the cloud, the Chinese Communist Party is leveraging the world’s most sensitive data, accessing critical infrastructure, and shaping digital infrastructure standards to suit its own interests. There will be more opportunities to form. It will also create dependence on Huawei equipment in other countries.
But perhaps the most worrying development for the world is Huawei’s new smartphone, the Mate60 Pro. The Mate60 Pro is powered by a 5G-enabled 7-nanometer chip that was reportedly designed and manufactured entirely in China by the Chinese government-owned Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation.
Huawei and SMIC have apparently developed ways to circumvent U.S. export restrictions on 5G components and chip manufacturing technology, and the resulting cutting-edge chips could have critical military and AI applications. be. The fact that the Chinese government recently banned the use of iPhones by civil servants could also portend mass adoption of the MatePro 60 in China and abroad, a blow for one of America’s leading technology companies. . To add insult to injury, Huawei debuted the phone during Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to China in August, a clear middle finger to U.S. regulations.
As with many national security issues, the world will follow our lead. A U.S.-led campaign to persuade allies to exclude Huawei from their networks has already shown proof of concept. Now the US needs to step up its previous pressure campaign to persuade allies to comply.
In 2019 and 2020, the US reportedly threatened the beleaguered UK with refusing to share information if it allowed Huawei to participate in the buildout of 5G. In the end, Britain surrendered. Perhaps there is a lesson there.
Most recently, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released 150 recommendations to protect the United States from Chinese economic and technological threats. These include export control policies that deny Huawei-related U.S. technology and funding for “rip-and-replace” efforts to keep companies like Huawei out of U.S. networks. To the extent that the United States itself can adopt these recommendations and support similar actions by its allies, it will be a victory.
The road ahead will be difficult due to Huawei’s intense lobbying efforts and the simple reality that Huawei products are cheaper than Western alternatives. But sacrificing security for short-term savings is never a worthwhile trade-off.
David Wiresol is a senior fellow at the U.S. Foreign Policy Council and former chief speechwriter for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
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