The issue about Huawei has reached debacle status with Trumps formal admission that he wants 5G as soon as possible and displaying his ignorance because it doesn’t even exist, 6G if possible. He has told U.S. entities like Sprint and Verizon to up their game and compete with the likes of Huawei so as American manufacturers can compete in the 5G space.
In a series of tweets he has single handedly shown the real reason Spark has been told not to engage with Huawei. It is nothing about cyber spying fears by the Chinese should Spark implement Huawei 5G gear in New Zealand’s upgrade, but is all part of the American trade war with China. Our spy agency under the powerful influence of the American NSA and no doubt acting on their instructions has interfered with the normal process that the N.Z. telco Spark would normally go through.
Trump tweeted “American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind on something that is so obviously the future. I want the United States to win through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies. “
Indeed the GCSB is now guilty of being exposed simply an American agent of disinformation for the benefit of the U.S. not for the help and advancement of New Zealand and should be shut down. If the puppet can’t be used this time it will be used against New Zealanders again in the future.
In the United Kingdom the FT says the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has determined that there are ways to limit the risks from using Huawei in future 5G networks. The UK paper also quotes Robert Hannigan, former head of GCHQ (the Brit equivalent to our GCSB), saying the NCSC had “never found evidence of malicious Chinese state cyber activity through Huawei” and that any “assertions that any Chinese technology in any part of a 5G network represents an unacceptable risk are nonsense”.
As well in Germany, long a subservient state to U.S. demands, there is growing dissatisfaction that the U.S. is trying to block the use of Huawei equipment in the German 5G upgrade, a German trade minister and a union representative both coming out strongly against the American pressure to block the use of the Chinese equipment saying it will lead to an inferior solution for Germany.
It is highly probable that the real reason the Trump administration is twisting the arms of allies is that 5G is so fast that they won’t have the technical ability to intercept traffic on the 5G networks themselves – not that the Chinese have embedded some secret listening gear in the manufacturing process. Trump now realises that American technology has fallen a long way behind the Chinese (and Russians) on many fronts so he stirs up action and blames his trade war on the spurious lie that the Chinese ‘stole’ U.S. technology, hence the trade war is warranted.
Finally none of the commentators here in N.Z. have spoken about the NSA spying that is done daily in massive volume via existing technologies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and dare I say it Tinder! So what is the beat up? You will be spied on if you are using a Huawei phone with the Facebook ap or Google downloaded!
It remains to see if Jacinda Adern has enough leadership nous to allow normal commercial bidding to proceed, something we all should be pressuring her to show, excluding the anti Chinese dagger that Winston Peters has strapped to his leg, a proven opponent of the Chinese.
Lets hope so or we stall at edge of advancement.
Malcolm Eves 22/02/19