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20 United States The Economist April 25th 2020
2 face masks had not been substantially re- prohibited interaction with Huawei during
plenished in over a decade. Would-be at- the course of standard-setting, too. They
tackers will take note. worried that, in the course of discussion,
Governments are also worried about a American-made technologies would in ef-
new generation of biological threats. In fect be transferred to Huawei, placing their
2016 American intelligence agencies sin- employer in breach of the rules.
gled out genome editing as a national-se- That legal decision created a problem.
curity threat for the first time. Two years Huawei plays a big role in setting standards
later a major study by the National Acade- on artificial intelligence, 5g and other con-
mies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medi- nectivity technologies, so avoiding inter-
cine warned that synthetic biology, a po- actions with the firm while simultaneous-
tent set of methods for tinkering with or ly getting involved in the rigorous nerdery
creating organisms, could, in time, be used of standard-setting was impossible. As a
to re-create viruses like smallpox or make result, some companies with American op-
existing pathogens more dangerous, such erations have removed themselves from
as resistant to antibiotics. the standard-setting processes in which
In 2011 Dutch and Japanese scientists they used to join. In areas where Huawei is
said that they had created a version of bird active, this has left America voiceless in
flu that could be transmitted between setting the tech rules of the future.
mammals by the respiratory route—an an- The effect has been particularly acute at
nouncement that prompted the Nether- standards bodies that convene outside
lands to treat the relevant academic papers The Hua-war America, where the organisers are less in-
as sensitive goods subject to export con- clined to make arrangements to accommo-
trols. In January Canadian scientists fund- Some body to hold date firms that are subject to export-con-
ed by an American biotech company used trol rules. At those meetings, in some
synthetic dna from Germany to synthesise instances, Huawei and other Chinese com-
a microbe closely related to smallpox, indi- panies have had a voice where American
cating the ease with which it could be done. companies have not. Some, such as 3gpp, a
“If a potential bad actor pursues a weapons body that deals with 5g, and ieee, an engi-
capability using sars-cov-2, the virus is The fight with Huawei has diminished neering body, have declared themselves to
America’s ability to shape tech rules
now attainable in laboratories all around be “open” meetings, in an attempt to re-
the world, and blueprints for assembling it he process of setting standards at- move liability from firms with American
from scratch have been published in the Ttracts little attention, probably because operations. But uncertainty persists.
scientific literature,” notes Mr Pilch. it is very boring. Its magi gather regularly to Standards bodies with American opera-
The trouble is that biodefence has seek consensus on mind-numbing techni- tions, such as the Wi-Fi Alliance in Austin,
evolved slowly, says Dan Kaszeta, a former cal details for the running of things like cell Texas, or the Bluetooth Special Interest
biological weapons adviser to the White phone networks, artificial intelligence ser- Group in Kirkland, Washington, have faced
House. Compact devices that can detect vices and global shipping. Meetings are ar- their own version of the problem. Some
chemical threats and warn soldiers to don a ranged through bodies with names like iso have excluded Huawei. While this does
gas mask have long been available. “That (International Organisation for Standardi- mean that American companies can take
doesn’t exist for anthrax or any of the other sation) or 5gaa (the 5g Automotive Associ- part in Huawei-free discussions, it threat-
aerosol pathogens,” says Mr Kaszeta. “Tell- ation, a specialist body focused on build- ens to undermine the standards bodies’ le-
ing the difference between an anthrax ing 5gconnectivity into autonomous cars). gitimacy as the single forum for the issues
spore and a bit of tree pollen is not some- There are hundreds of these things. they cover. There is talk of competing bo-
thing you can do in a couple of seconds.” Standards are important, despite ap- dies being set up outside America, to make
Internationally, the issue is largely ne- pearances. The internet protocol, written truly global discussion possible.
glected. “There’s no single facilitator in the by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in California in American lawmakers have noticed. On
un system for a high-consequence biologi- 1973, is the fundamental standard on which April 14th a group of Republican senators
cal event of unknown origin,” says Beth the rest of the internet runs. Mr Cerf now wrote to the Departments of Commerce,
Cameron of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, works for Google, and America holds sig- Defence, Energy and State fretting that
an ngo. The bwc, she says, operates on a nificant sway over the net. Those who set American companies had been locked out
“shoe-string budget”. the rules for a piece of technical infrastruc- of standards discussions on 5g and urging
Military labs across the world are al- ture, such as the internet, gain power over the departments to fix it. The senators said
ready heavily involved in the fight against its future workings. This is why America they were “deeply concerned” about the
covid-19, but government money is a drop worries about China’s growing contribu- loss of soft power America derives from
in the ocean compared with the billions of tions to standards for 5g networks and oth- standard-setting by American companies.
dollars of private funds now being un- er technologies. Yet for the past year tech- Few in Washington disagree, yet the fix
leashed against the virus. One hope is that nology companies with operations in is not straightforward. Tweaking rules in
the crash efforts to develop better tests and America have been frozen out of some favour of engagement with Huawei is polit-
a vaccine may yield so-called platform standard-setting as an accidental conse- ically unpalatable, even when that engage-
technologies that would have utility not quence of the American government’s at- ment is in forums as innocuous and dull as
only against coronavirus, but also a wide tack on the Chinese tech giant, Huawei. standards bodies. Meanwhile, Huawei is
range of other biological threats. Anthrax, This started with the addition of Hua- still building 5g networks around the
for instance, has a vaccine but requires a wei to the entity list in May 2019. That made world, networks which will carry the
cumbersome five doses. The “holy grail”, it illegal for any company to export pro- whizzy internet services of the future. And
says Mr Kaszeta, would be a broad-spec- ducts to Huawei that had been made in for almost a year, by its own hand, Ameri-
trum antiviral or vaccine—a shield against America. Tech-company lawyers looked at ca’s best companies have been frozen out of
natural and human foes alike. 7 the regulations and decided that the law discussions which define that future. 7
