The
Guardian view on Huawei and 5G: the risks are real
Editorial
Boris
Johnson’s decision to green light the Chinese firm’s role in Britain’s digital
future was understandable. But maximum vigilance is required
Tue 28 Jan
2020 18.46 GMTLast modified on Tue 28 Jan 2020 19.05 GMT
The lead-up
to Britain’s formal departure from the European Union, at 11pm on Friday, has
made headlines mainly due to a somewhat bathetic row over Big Ben and church
bells. But in Downing Street, the fraught navigation of a post-Brexit landscape
began in earnest this week, with a new kind of crisis over sovereignty.
Boris
Johnson’s decision to allow the Chinese tech company Huawei a substantial role
in supplying Britain’s 5G network is his first key geopolitical move, raising
vital questions over data security. The green light to Huawei was given in the
teeth of concerted opposition from the US and some of the prime minister’s own
backbenchers. America has warned that the company’s participation in 5G
networks would represent a major security risk to the west, given its close
relationship to the Chinese state. Huawei has already been excluded from 5G networks
in Japan and Australia on the grounds that control of vital infrastructure
could fall into the hands of a potentially hostile power. One Republican
senator said on Tuesday that “London has freed itself from Brussels only to
cede sovereignty to Beijing”.
Such talk
is overblown; sovereignty also involves Britain exercising a right to make its
own decisions without transatlantic bullying. But Mr Johnson undoubtedly faces
a tricky meeting with the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who arrives in
London on Wednesday for talks with the prime minister. Earlier this week, Mr
Pompeo described the Huawei decision as “momentous” and suggested that future
intelligence-sharing between Britain and America could be disrupted.
Mr Johnson
has the backing of his security chiefs, who believe the risk posed by Huawei,
which has operated in Britain for over a decade, is manageable. He also hopes
to forestall the inevitable fallout by building in restrictions to Huawei’s
future access and influence. The company has been designated a “high-risk
vendor”, excluded from “core” activities of the 5G network, and its share of
the market has been capped at 35%. Those limitations are sensible, but they do
not eliminate risk. In Australia it was judged that the 5G era would collapse
the distinction between core and periphery digital activity, making it
impossible to police. In essence Mr Johnson has therefore signed up to a “known
unknown”, authorising Chinese participation in vital national infrastructure
where future vulnerabilities are impossible to assess. There will be a need for
constant and ongoing vigilance, especially if China continues to develop its
authoritarian and domineering tendencies, at home and abroad, under the
leadership of Xi Jinping.
Washington
has hinted that this decision may deplete stocks of goodwill ahead of
post-Brexit trade negotiations that have become totemic for the government. The
prime minister will hope that such talk was merely a case of playing hardball.
But the decision to risk Donald Trump’s ire, at such a sensitive moment, is
revealing. The power of tech-driven growth and to propel Britain to the sunlit
uplands is a prime article of faith in Mr Johnson’s inner circle. Taking Huawei
out of the 5G equation would have significantly delayed the introduction of
high-speed internet across the country. That was a price the prime minister and
his advisers were not willing to pay, even if that meant queering the
post-Brexit pitch in trade terms. Mr Johnson has taken a gamble. On balance,
given the advice of his own intelligence services, it was justifiable. But
it is not, on any front, risk-free.
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