National security risks rise on China push for 5G tech

Boris Johnson’s rash decision to allow Huawei a slice of Britain’s 5G network is odd, shortsighted and worrying, especially for the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which share intelligence material with it as part of the Five Eyes alliance. What was the British Prime Minister thinking? His own security services raised major concerns about the Chinese telecom equipment supplier. Not only that, Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had urged British leaders and officials to boycott Huawei products, again based on security fears. Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings called it a “disastrous decision”, warning of lasting damage to the Washington-London alliance. As well, the move may make it more difficult for Britain to strike trade deals in the post-Brexit era.

Britain said Huawei would be given permission to build only “non-core” parts of the 5G and full-fibre network, and could not exceed 35 per cent of the project. The firm will be allowed to provide only peripheral equipment, such as base stations and antennae that connect the core to consumers’ devices; it will be banned from sensitive locations such as military bases and nuclear sites. Still, Britain’s National Security Council concluded the many security risks the Chinese company presented could be managed. But why risk anything? This is where the short-term financial desperation kicks in for Mr Johnson. Huawei is embedded in Britain’s telecoms infrastructure and removing it from the next-generation project would have been expensive and caused delays in delivery. Given there are few competitors and Huawei is at the forefront of technology, Britain found itself in 5G no man’s land.

In August 2018, one of Malcolm Turnbull’s last acts as prime minister was to ban Chinese firms from a role in Australia’s future 5G network on the grounds such state-owned companies could be exploited by Beijing’s spying services. New Zealand followed suit. Canada has not yet decided whether to ban the Chinese. Mr Turnbull later described it as a “hedge against adverse contingencies” in case relations with China soured. It was a smart move, opting for long-term cyber security over short-run commercial advantages offered by the likes of Huawei. For this prudent act of national self-interest, Canberra has been shunted to the diplomatic deep freezer ever since.

A rare insight into the thinking of our intelligence chiefs was provided in October 2018 by then Australian Signals Directorate chief Mike Burgess, now ASIO director-general. In a speech titled “Coming out from the shadows”, he revealed “my advice was to exclude high-risk vendors from the entirety of 5G networks”. Why? Because “a potential threat anywhere in the network is a threat to the whole network”. A computer engineer, Mr Burgess explained 5G technology was at the centre of applications from driverless cars to power and water supply. The stakes were much higher than simply protecting confidentiality, important as that was. “It is also about integrity and availability of the data and systems that we rely on in our everyday lives,” he said. “Getting security right for critical infrastructure is paramount.”

Huawei has repeatedly denied claims its gear could be used by the Chinese state to spy on countries or knock out key infrastructure. As we reported on Thursday, Mr Johnson’s decision has prompted the Australian arm of the company to launch a “charm offensive” to remove the ban on its participation in our 5G rollout. “We want to know what the rules are,” its local boss said, adding Huawei “was not responsible for the actions of the Chinese government”. Too cute by half. As we have argued, Huawei functions under Chinese law, entitling the Chinese state to insist on the company providing digital access to exchanges between Western allies using its systems. China has a notorious record of stealing Western intellectual property, which is at the core of concern about the Chinese tech giant.

Right now, China is winning the 5G technology race through a mix of theft, innovation, subsidies and coercion. As Mr Turnbull has argued, the US and its allies should give “urgent priority” to developing their own next-gen network in the face of cyber attacks. As a former NASA chief warns, the nation that dominates 5G will reap economic, military and political advantages for decades. Closing the technology gap must be top of the Five Eyes agenda.