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Earlier this month, our colleague Bronwyn Howell emphasized the high economic costs facing Western nations considering a ban on Huawei equipment in their 5G networks. Her core argument is summed up in one sentence: “Quite simply, Australian and New Zealand political leaders must decide whether they will prioritize US-driven political considerations over local economic ones, which unequivocally rest with China, and by implication, Huawei.” We disagree with two aspects of this assertion: First, despite its recent leadership on the issue, concerns about Huawei are not just “US-driven.” Second, and more fundamentally, the decision is not about politics versus economics, but rather what price countries are willing to pay for secure 5G networks.
While the US has taken the lead in the international campaign to block Huawei from 5G networks, Australia began sounding the alarm in 2018, following an eye-opening war game. That July, Australia announced it would ban Huawei products from its 5G networks. The same month, the UK’s Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre Oversight Board released a report saying it could “provide only limited assurance that all risks to UK national security from Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s critical networks have been sufficiently mitigated.” It was not until late 2018 that the US began publicly campaigning for allies to ban Huawei from their 5G networks. Wariness of Huawei began before the current US campaign against the company.
More importantly, Huawei’s presence in 5G networks raises fundamental national security issues, not questions of political favoritism. 5G is set to move telecoms far beyond its current domain and touch every part of the economy, including health care, manufacturing, autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things, and critical infrastructure, such as the electric grid and water supply. Yet 5G also poses unique security challenges. Primary among these is that there is no distinction between the network “core” and “edge” as in previous iterations of telecom technology, so each 5G cell is a potential vulnerability for a malicious actor to exploit. 5G equipment will receive constant software updates, which will be difficult to comprehensively audit for security. This makes it crucial that components come from a trusted source. Given Huawei’s close-knit relationship with the Chinese government, and its intelligence agencies in particular, it is far from clear that Huawei meets that standard.
The warnings on this front aren’t just coming from the White House. As stated above, the Australian intelligence community conducted a war game in 2018 that showed a would-be attacker with access to network equipment could seriously hobble the country. The US intelligence community is concerned enough about the security implications that last week it played out another simulated attack on global allies, which one participant described as “a nightmare scenario.” Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, supreme allied commander Europe of NATO, made the threat clear in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year:
Skeptics sometimes point out that there is no evidence of Huawei malfeasance in its products. This is true as far as it goes — but only because 5G has not yet arrived. Must we wait until Huawei equipment is installed and either backdoors or malicious software are discovered to decide the risk is too great? Greater caution seems in order.
There will certainly be an economic cost to banning Huawei from 5G networks. While policymakers around the world should make that clear to their constituents, they should also emphasize that the alternative is allowing an authoritarian country access to their nation’s telecommunications, exposing it — and connected infrastructure — to espionage and sabotage. In the end, the question becomes: What price are nations willing to pay for trustworthy 5G networks?
The decision over whether to ban Huawei from western 5G networks is not just one of politics and economics, but of what price countries are willing to pay for secure 5G networks — and thus their national security.
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