Fury over UK decision to clear Huawei for role in new 5G network

US warns the UK decision to allow Huawei a role in the 5G network will impact on security.

Huawei’s main UK offices in Reading, west of London. Picture: AFP

Britain’s shock decision to allow the “high risk’’ Chinese company Huawei involvement in the 5G telecommunications network has angered the United States, which is fearful of security risks and the deleterious impact on the Five Eyes Intelligence arrangement.

Security concerns from two of the Five Eyes partners, Australia and the US, were brushed aside in favour of Britain steaming ahead with 5G connectivity – which is ten times faster than existing internet speeds.

British officials feared that if Huawei were completely banned they would have to reconfigure the existing 4G network — which has Huawei involvement — adding to the cost and time to rollout 5G.

On Tuesday the Boris Johnson government agreed to allow Huawei – categorised as a “high risk vendor’’ to be involved in less than 35 per cent of Britain’s 5G network.

The National Security Council met on Tuesday morning and received advice from intelligence agencies including MI5 and MI6 who said Huawei’s involvement was a managed risk.

But the immediate response from the United States – both Republicans and Democrats – underscored their concerns that China could secure a backdoor way to spy on their operations.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton says the decision is “like allowing the KGB to build its telephone network during the Cold War”.

He added: “I fear London has freed itself from Brussels only to cede sovereignty to Beijing.”

Republican congressman Mike Gallagher said the decision meant “it would be impossible to achieve a gold standard US-UK trade agreement when you have gone through the brutal effort to claw back sovereignty from Brussels to give it back to Beijing’’.

Senator Mitt Romney implored Britain to reverse the decision, saying incorporating Huawei into its 5G network is “a disconcerting sign’’.

He added that by prioritising costs, the UK was “sacrificing national security and inviting the CCP’s surveillance state in.’’

But the British foreign secretary Dominic Raab told parliament that “nothing in this review affects this country’s ability to share highly sensitive intelligence data over highly secure networks both within the UK and with our partners including the Five Eyes.’’

Mr Raab added that GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) “categorically confirmed that how we construct our 5G and full fibre public telecoms network has nothing to do with how we share classified data”.

However the government decision was also heavily criticised by senior Tory members. Sir Bernard Jenkin rhetorically questioned that the decision represented a massive strategic national failure and indeed a failure of Western strategy that the Five Eyes had been left in this position.

“What harsh and honest lessons will the UK Government take from finding itself confronted with this dilemma?’’ he said.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the UK was in a cyber war with China and that the decision was a “mistake”.

Mr Raab admitted the difficulties of eliminating risk but said was the government’s job to “reduce vulnerabilities”.

“If we are to encourage the take-up of new technologies that will transform our lives for the better then we need to have the right measures in place,” he said.

Huawei media spokesman Ed Brewster said there had been a lot of false arguments about Huawei and that “some of that is linked to low understanding about network technology and low understanding around China as well’’.

Ian Levy, technical director at the National Cyber Security Centre wrote in a blog: “The international standards that define what a 5G network actually is allow you to do all sorts of things, and some of those things could lead to security or operational risks that can’t be mitigated. That doesn’t mean you have to do them.’’

He wrote that in 5G you need lots of smaller base stations as well as big ones, and the small ones would be on lampposts, bus shelters and other places that weren’t secure from physical interference “by bad guys’’.

He added: ’’So, if your network design means that you need to run really sensitive functions processing really sensitive data (i.e. core functions) on an edge access device on top of a bus stop, your choice of vendor is the least of your worries and you probably shouldn’t be designing critical national infrastructure.’’

Agencies cleared Huawei

The British government made its decision after taking advice from intelligence agencies including MI5 and MI6, who reportedly believed that a limited Huawei involvement was a managed risk.

Australia’s banning of Huawei in the national telecommunication rollout was used as an example by the Americans to try to convince the British to use a European or US company.

It is believed Australia has stressed the security risk of such a decision to the British. It is unknown what impact the British decision will now have on the ongoing co-operation Australia has with the British when dealing with sensitive security matters.

Whitehall officials have been briefing journalists that Britain’s “world-leading cyber security’’ experts can manage the risks of having the Chinese involved in the 5G network.

The British government will limit Huawei to 35 per cent of the 5G and full-fibre network, hoping that by diluting its influence it can control any risk.

However, Tom Tugendhat, the Tory chair of the crossbench foreign affairs committee, said before the decision was made that Huawei would “nest a dragon into the nation’s critical national infrastructure”.

Meanwhile, The EU will not ban Huawei or any other company in Europe, a top official said on Tuesday, despite intense pressure from Washington to shun the firm over spying fears.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, will officially unveil recommendations to member states on Wednesday, but commissioner Thierry Breton told MEPs that Brussels will choose tight scrutiny over any blanket ban.

“It is not a question of discrimination, it is a question of laying down rules. They will be strict, they will be demanding and of course we will welcome in Europe all operators who are willing to apply them,” he said.

Additional reporting: AFP