Big Brother is coming to your home thanks to cheap products from China

US federal prosecutors unsealed a pair of indictments this week, charging
Chinese technology company Huawei with crimes including bank fraud, sanctions violations and theft of trade secrets.

Huawei’s behaviour is finally being recognised for what it is. Beijing is using companies such as Huawei and ZTE as an extension of its intelligence network, engaging in criminal behaviour to advance not only the bottom line but also the interests of the Chinese state.

With the 5G future close at hand, this realisation can’t come a moment too soon.

This isn’t a new problem.

In 2012, after a year-long investigation, the US house intelligence committee raised the alarm about Huawei and ZTE in a bipartisan report. The report focused the attention of the intelligence community on the criminal and espionage threat.

Huawei calls our concern “little more than an exercise in China-bashing”, but it’s widely shared internationally.

From Poland to Canada, Australia to France, Western countries are waking up to the threat of Chinese state and commercial espionage, and are taking countermeasures.

Why does this matter to you? Because the next-generation communication network, 5G, will revolutionise the way we use technology, and China wants dominance from the start.

Rather than operating from a central location, 5G network sensors are pushed to endpoints such as networked refrigerators, thermostats, aircraft, factory machines, autonomous vehicles and things we haven’t yet conceived that will be tied into the 5G network.

This requires a radical rethinking of how we secure our data. It’s pointless to lock the doors of your house if you leave every window open and add a few new ones for good measure.

China has made it clear that it wants to dominate 5G technology and its deployment.

Through Huawei and the products it manufactures, Beijing is working to control the 5G network rollout, control the international standards for its deployment, and infect the foundation of the 5G system for its own benefit.

Big Brother is coming into your home thanks to cheap products from China.

As the indictment demonstrates, and as our allied intelligence services have agreed, China’s control of 5G is a very bad idea. We must recognise that Huawei and other Chinese companies care nothing about free-market competition.

Their aim is to control, access and exploit data.

Beijing must be put on notice that its use of Huawei and ZTE as extensions of its intelligence apparatus is unacceptable.

China must be prevented from dominating 5G and made to see that there are consequences for violating international norms. Businesses and governments must stand up to Beijing. Failing to do so compromises national security.

The 2019 National Defence Authorisation Act bans US federal agencies and contractors from using Huawei and ZTE technology.

Last year, the US Federal Communications Commission proposed excluding companies that buy from Huawei and ZTE from receiving certain federal funding.

These actions are a start, but not enough.

Huawei is a security risk we can’t afford at any price.

Mike Rogers was the chairman of the US House of Representatives permanent select committee on intelligence, 2011-15.

The Wall Street Journal