Huawei and the 5G Debate
By Alex Whitham
Huawei may be one of the largest, and most successful, technology manufacturers in the world but it is also a pawn in an aggressively contested political game. Huawei is caught in the US and China’s poor relations. While Huawei argues that it is an independent organisation and has been willing to sign legal documents, which say that they will not spy on any data, the US has maintained that Huawei has profound links to the Chinese state. This is because its founder, Rhen Zhengfei, was an engineer for the People’s Liberation Army between 1974 and 1983. In 2020 the rhetoric from Mike Pompeo has escalated. During a January Policy Exchange Press Conference with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab the Secretary of State claimed that the Chinese state had ‘front door’ access to Huawei’s networks and component. In recent days, the US put Huawei on a new list of Chinese companies which it says are owned or controlled by the People’s Liberation Army. This puts the UK, and its relationship with Beijing, under strain because the US wants the UK to prioritise the ‘Special Relationship’ over business with China.
The trade war between the United States and China has caused a significant casualty in the technology sector. By barring US firms from doing business, or supplying hardware or software, to Chinese state entities; the US has decisively taken a side on China’s state capitalism structure. Many of China’s technology companies, such as ZTE or OPPO, have relatively direct financial links with the Chinese state. Therefore, blacklisting those companies in a trade war made sense from the US’ perspective. Blacklisting Huawei, a supposedly independent technology corporation was, however, seen as unfair by the company. This has had a multitude of crippling effects for Huawei which range from being unable to use Microsoft’s Windows or Google’s Android operating systems on their laptops and smartphones to being barred, on national security grounds, from contributing to the growing 5G network in the US and elsewhere.
The US has then sought to use its international allies to put further pressure on Huawei, and China by association. This has been carried out by the US State Department putting pressure on allies, including the UK, to stop their companies from doing business with Huawei and to remove Huawei’s components from their telecoms networks. The Five Eyes – the intelligence sharing network of the five largest English-speaking states – have largely fallen in behind the US’ lead with Australia, in particular, keenly following Trump in lock-step. The UK, by contrast, had sought to find a middle path by barring Huawei from the core of its 5G network and limiting its periphery parts to 35%. This policy did not meet the US’ demands and during the aforementioned press conference Mike Pompeo sought to suggest that intelligence sharing with the UK could be compromised if plans went forward with Huawei’s involvement. While pressure from the US alone has not changed the UK’s course there are causes for concern in the ‘Special Relationship’. Firstly, the negotiations over a UK-US trade deal are ongoing with difficult decisions over food standards and trading rules to come. Secondly, the killing of Harry Dunn and the US’ refusal to extradite Anne Sacoolas caused outrage across the British media. Thirdly, the UK’s refusal to become a dedicated disciple of the anti-China camp has created a cooling of relations with Washington. The politics of the Atlantic consequently play an important role in framing the Huawei issue.
The choice between technology and national security has been caught in a growing political inferno. Huawei is the world leader in 5G network technology and large UK networks, such as BT and Vodafone, have warned that switching to Ericsson and Nokia, which have inferior equipment, would cost time, money, and quality of product. BT warned in January that meeting the government’s existing target of a 35% periphery and 0% core cap on Huawei technology would cost it £500 million. By contrast, Huawei sceptics have argued that national security is of the greatest concern and should not be compromised. To add to the cacophony of Huawei sceptics detracting statements, GCHQ and the National Cybersecurity Centre have launched reviews into their previous positions – that any risk from Huawei was negligible and could be managed – due to new US sanctions on use of US-designed computer chips. Huawei meanwhile has launched an advertising campaign in the UK in recent weeks to improve its image and to reassure the public that it is trustworthy, secure, and is owned by its employees just like John Lewis. The choice between security and technology is therefore a complex one whose emphasis has shifted to the political.
The coronavirus pandemic, and new Hong Kong Security Legislation from Beijing, could not have come at a worse time for Huawei. As has become form, Huawei continues to be treated as a Chinese state pawn. The anti-China sentiment from the US has grown in popularity amongst UK Conservative backbench MPs due to these recent crises. The most high profile being former minister Ian Duncan Smith and Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Tom Tugendhat. A recent vote on a Telecoms Bill showed 38 Conservative MPs rebelling when Boris Johnson refused to remove Huawei from the UK network. Furthermore, as it is estimated that the group of dissenting Conservatives could be as large as 50; it has become increasingly likely that Huawei could become part of ‘Project Defund’. The term ‘defund’ is taken from US, and global, protests against the institutional racism of the police following the murders of George Floyd and countless other African-American men by the police. For Boris Johnson’s purposes, Project Defund refers to building up British and other non-Chinese supply chains of essential goods after the difficulties obtaining PPE at the height of the pandemic. This represents the government cooling its relationship with China more generally but also applies to Huawei. The Guardian reported (22/05/2020) that Johnson had caved to pressure to ban Huawei from the network but this has not been confirmed. In any case, the political pressure for the Prime Minister to change course on Huawei continues to grow from his own MPs, contemporary crises, and the US.
The Huawei 5G debate continues to crescendo in British politics with no sign of abating. The politics, mainly UK-orientated, but also Atlantic, have drowned the practical aspects of creating a 5G network. Therefore at the apex of the UK’s relationship with China, with the US, and with the government’s relations with its own MPs, lies Huawei as a largely mysterious, perhaps harmless or dangerous, but key part of the UK’s foreign relations and telecommunications capabilities. If reports surrounding Project Defund are to be believed, and stories from the Whitehall Village can be notoriously unreliable, then the Huawei sceptics will win. This will ease relations with the US and create political goodwill from Conservatives but the effects on relations with China could be unfortunate. Such effects will have wider ramifications for UK foreign affairs and could necessitate a pivot even further into the arms of the US. The consequences of the Huawei debate, and the future speed with which we can all access mobile online content, are therefore intrinsically linked with the UK’s future foreign policy direction.