Page 37 - Time_International_2019

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS

industries like automated vehicles (see box, right).
The advent of 5G means practically everything
with a chip will be tethered to a wireless network, EXPLAINER
which brings with it enormous geostrategic im- Everything you need
plications if a Chinese company is responsible for to know about 5G
building those networks. The 5G infrastructure will
intertwine factories, power plants, airports, hospi- By Alex Fitzpatrick
tals and government agencies. If it comes under a
broad, sustained attack, it “would mean a total col-
lapse of society,” warns professor Lim Jong-in of the
School of Information Security at Korea University.
That might explain why the U.S. is taking such a
hard line on Huawei, which has spent $2 billion over
10 years to ensure it is in the best position to be the
architect of global 5G technology. The company has
already signed contracts to provide 5G equipment
with 40 international carriers and shipped over
70,000 5G base stations, or short-range transceiv-
ers. But Washington is doing everything it can to
slow this technological advance—not just cracking
down domestically but also putting intense pres-
sure on allies around the world to ban Huawei from
their 5G networks on national- security grounds. “If
a country adopts [Huawei equipment] and puts it in
some of their critical information systems, we won’t
be able to share information with them, we won’t be
able to work alongside them,” U.S. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo said in late February. Australia, New
Zealand and Japan have acquiesced to bans; others,
including the U.K. and Germany, are hedging their
bets. Huawei has hit back by suing the U.S. govern-
ment for banning its 5G equipment, claiming the
ban was “unlawful.”
Yet there is good reason to be wary. Article VII
of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law stipulates
“any organization or citizen shall support, assist and
cooperate with state intelligence work.” Even were
Huawei not complicit, there is little doubt that the
Chinese government could impose its will. Every
Chinese company is legally obliged to host inter-
nal CCP cells—where employees who are party of-
ficials meet to discuss ideology—whose allegiance
and purpose is murky at best. “If the CCP tells Hua-
wei to do something, then there’s not going to be a
MONTANA: BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN FOR TIME; REN: VINCENT YU — AP
lot of leeway to say no,” says Adam Segal, director
of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the
Council on Foreign Relations.
Huawei is now trying to convince the world it
is a legitimate company not beholden to the party,
and leading the charge is Ren Zhengfei, the former
military engineer who founded Huawei with just a

‘If the CCP tells Huawei to

do something, there’s not
a lot of leeway to say no.’

—ADAM SEGAL, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
35