LONDON—Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has recently become a diplomatic hot potato, with some countries completely banning the company’s technology from their 5G networks.
According to a leak from the national security council, the UK is planning to involve Huawei only in the periphery of its new 5G network. But experts said this makes no difference to the security risk.
It’s a risk that was highlighted by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited London this week.
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t hold back on his words about Huawei.
“As a matter of Chinese law, the Chinese Government can rightfully demand access to data flowing through Huawei and ZTE systems. Why would anyone grant such power to a regime that has already grossly violated cyberspace?” he said.
Huawei is known to have close links with the Chinese regime, and there are fears their technology could be used to spy on Western governments.
But according to a leak from a national security council meeting, which is in itself a breach of national security, the UK has plans to allow Huawei a role in its 5G network—but only access to the network’s “non-core” components.
The director general of the Australian Signals Directorate, equivalent to the NSA in America, had previously said that the distinction between core and periphery collapses in 5G networks.
In his words, “A potential threat anywhere in the network will be a threat to the whole network.”
A former British diplomat and senior associate fellow at the Royal United Service Institute said going with Huawei, in any capacity, is not worth the risk.
“I compared it to in the medieval ages, with the King in England saying in the 12th or 13th century, we need a nice castle in Dover to protect us against foreign invasion and then the courtiers saying, well of course, the French build good castles at an extremely cheap price, we wouldn’t let them build the keep, but we might let them build the curtain walls—it’s that sort of analogy,” said Charles Parton, OBE.
“I don’t think you take a risk with your national security, however much you think you can manage, however small you might think it is, with a company that has to obey the Chinese communist party,” said Parton, who is also specialist adviser on China to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.
The United States, Australia, and New Zealand have completely banned Huawei from its 5G networks.
The UK’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said at a press conference on Wednesday that the final decision about 5G has not been made.
“We will never take a decision that compromised our ability to share intelligence with Five Eyes colleagues and particularly with the United States,” he said.
Mike Pompeo made it clear that if a network involves Huawei technology, it’s not trusted by the United States.