Fear of possible espionage by the Chinese government continues to spread across different countries. What at first seemed to be a “tantrum” of the United States more due to economic pressures than anything else, has turned out to be a well-founded concern for more countries. In fact, the list of countries that have banned or are going to ban the use of Huawei equipment to deploy 5G continues to grow.
The Chinese firm Huawei is one of the most important companies in the world in the segment of mobile networks, a market that it shares with Ericsson or Nokia, among others. However, in recent years it has been involved in different controversies, doubts and investigations for theft of industrial secrets and espionage. All of that erupted early last year with the national emergency declaration on threats against the United States.
This was a further step in the trade war between the two countries. The Donald Trump government had then been accusing Huawei for more than a year of spying on network telecommunications for the Chinese government. As a result of this prohibition of collaboration with North American companies, events began to precipitate.
The first big reaction we met is that Google decided to break all the agreements and business it had with Huawei. This prevents them from accessing the Play Store or Google apps on Android. The operator must limit itself to AOSP (Android Open Source Project) from which it has launched its own operating system.
Later, companies such as Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Xilinx Inc, Infineon Technologies, Micron Technology and Western Digital stopped collaborating with the Asian giant. However, the government has been extending 90-day extensions to maintain collaboration between companies in both countries.
In 5G there are no extensions, total ban
Where there is no doubt is in the deployment of 5G. The United States is not going to use Huawei equipment and urges many countries to make a decision along these lines. Some countries have joined this veto, while others are reducing or will reduce the presence of network equipment from the Chinese manufacturer.
In addition, from the United States, we have other countries such as Australia that have decided to block the use of equipment from Huawei or ZTE (another Chinese company) in their 5G networks. New Zealand joined this block somewhat later. In the United Kingdom, the government plans to remove Huawei from its 5G network, according to The Telegraph. Some companies, such as BT, have already stated that they plan to remove this company’s network equipment from their 4G core network.
Canada, a neighbor of the United States, has still not made a decision in this regard and has been analyzing the safety of the equipment for several years. You must make a decision soon. The same is happening at the European level, without the European Commission having dictated anything about it. Many countries, like Spain, are waiting. Vodafone has already said that it will remove Huawei from the most sensitive parts of its 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G mobile network while Telefónica will reduce Huawei’s participation in its 5G network.
In France, they are preparing to strongly restrict the use of Huawei 5G networks, according to the economic newspaper Les Echos. Another country that has raised tension against China is India. After banning the use of applications from that country, such as TikTok, they have now asked operators such as BSNL and MTNL to abandon the Chinese team of their 4G update plans.
The review now brings us to Norway, which has warned about the risks of using Huawei technology on its 5G networks. Germany and Japan have not made a decision, but they have serious doubts about the use of Chinese technology in a key component. In the case of Japan, it has banned Huawei or ZTE from public contracts.
Italy opened the doors to using Huawei technology in its 5G network at the end of last year, but things may have changed a lot these months and some decision will be made soon.
As we see, there are many countries that have joined the ban on using Huawei equipment to deploy 5G, although it is true that some have not yet made a decision. Of course, what seems general is that the presence of the Chinese operator in the most sensitive parts of the new telecommunications networks will be limited.