Two countries in Europe and the European Union (EU) — Germany and Italy — have agreed to build their telecommunications infrastructure around Huawei equipment. This gear is ultimately controlled by the intelligence and military services of mainland China’s Communist dictatorship. The company is already notorious in the West for its industrial spying, lying, and violation of sanctions. In so doing, Germany and Italy are effectively reading themselves out of the Western alliance and NATO.
Surprisingly, although a number of important British telecom firms are moving to shun Huawei, there is still waffling in the UK government.
The two (or perhaps three) countries’ decisions don’t even make commercial sense, for they are also a kick in the teeth to their fellow European telecom equipment providers, Ericsson and Nokia.
What’s the hurry?
The supposed argument in favor of Huawei is that it is further along in rolling out hardware to support 5G, the “5th Generation” next upgrade in the internet. A 5G internet will be faster and better able to support the “internet of things” — cars, homes, and gadgets connected to the internet. According to the Hong Kong based, mainland China-influenced Asia Times,
Huawei’s European competitors, Ericsson and Nokia, lag far behind Huawei, according to industry experts. There is currently no US firm that is ready to provide the core equipment necessary to roll out 5G networks.
Observers say Washington’s last-minute attempt to block Huawei out of international markets comes too late, and reflects a lack of any domestic policy that promotes a competitive alternative.
But what’s the big hurry? The 5G standard won’t be completed for two years, and certainly Western security overrides whether the dog collar of one’s pet Shih Tzu is connected to the internet, along with one’s refrigerator or sous vide.
One of the reasons Huawei got a slight leg on its competition is that the Chinese government went out of its way in insuring that the international standards committees that prepared the 5G standards were stacked with Huawei and Chinese officials. The Chinese government killed the $44 billion Qualcom-NXP merger in order to sabotage a potential competitor to Huawei. And the Chinese government is bullying close US allies with reprisals if they opt not to install Huawei equipment.
According to a retired US national security official
“China will gain a capability for mayhem and mass surveillance if it dominates advanced 5G networks that link billions of devices,” retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding said in a memo that was obtained by Bloomberg News.
“The more connected we are, and 5G will make us the most connected by far, the more vulnerable we become,” Spalding, who left the National Security Council last year, said in the memo.
Of course, Huawei has friends in the US, some self-interested, like the Clintons and former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe; others indifferent to security concerns because of their libertarian fixation on economics over everything else, such as John Tamny, the editor of RealClearMarkets.
A US mistake in trade strategy
We don’t know to what extent US President Donald Trump’s unstrategic trade policy is partly to blame for Italy and Germany’s defection. The Trump administration is admirably seeking to reform China’s theft of intellectual property, its flooding of international markets with the subsidized products of state-run industries, and its placing obstacles deliberately in the way of US and allied companies competing fairly in China. But rather than seeking a united front with equally aggrieved military allies in Europe, Japan, and former British Commonwealth countries, the Trump administration levied tariffs against their steel and aluminum industries and has threatened to follow-up with automobile tariffs. This predictably brought trade retaliation from not just China but also allies, hurting US exporters, especially farmers, and causing severe financial losses at many US firms using the two metals. In General Motors’ case, the losses add up to a staggering $1 billion.
Had the Trump administration pursued a strategic united front with its allies instead of attacking them, there would have been no selective retaliation against the US by either our allies or China. This would also have put the US and world economy on a much surer footing than it is at present.
This is not to deny that the two European countries were and are perfectly capable of adopting foolish policies without any help from the US. That goes especially for Germany, whose chancellor, Angela Merkel, weakened the EU with her open door policy to Islamic refugees, her shutdown of nuclear power plants in Germany, and her endorsement thus far of the Nordstream II pipeline that would give Putin’s Russia a choke-hold on Germany’s energy supplies.
Ironically, Italy and Germany’s pro-Huawei actions give the US real reason to transform its previously unwarranted Section 232 (security) tariffs into justifiable security tariffs. There may be better, more appropriate ways of doing so, however. Insofar as Germany, Italy, and perhaps the UK show themselves indifferent to allied security needs by providing an open door to Huawei in their telecom infrastructures, the US should declare the countries no longer under the US defense umbrella. Our military based in those countries should be moved to more security-minded nations or brought back to the States.
Leave a Reply