mandag 17. februar 2020

5G and Huawei: The UK and EU Decide

The U.K.’s decision in late January to allow “high-risk vendors” to equip parts of its 5G telecommunications networks permits the continuing involvement of Huawei, a company described by U.S. legislators and officials as an arm of the Chinese state. The decision has been widely portrayed as a sacrifice of the U.K.’s security and that of partner nations to short-sighted material greed. It has been blasted in the U.K. Parliament and by critics abroad, who have blamed it on post-Brexit fear of retaliation from China and the clout of “Beijing-backed business interests.”

In fact, the controversy reflects deeper disagreements over engineering and security design for 5G networks, and about whether the basic problem involved is one of risk management, or of fundamental incompatibility with the Chinese political system in which Huawei operates.