Coalition countering Huawei faces hurdles

This summer has seen the tech war between China and the US take on new dimensions. From new export controls via the US Department of Commerce banning the sale of US semiconductor "software" and "technology" to Huawei to the executive orders prohibiting transactions with TikTok and WeChat, the administration of President Donald Trump has been doubling down on its efforts to address China's growing technology dominance.

It has also witnessed many other countries take more legal measures against Huawei. For instance, the United Kingdom announced that it would formally exclude Huawei from its core network in mid-July. Similarly, Canada's largest telecommunications company Telus has partnered with Ericsson and Nokia after receiving pressure from Canada's intelligence authorities.

Both decisions represent a departure from previous commitments accepting Huawei earlier this year. In other places, such as Denmark, France and Slovenia, lawmakers have recently imposed "heightened security" requirements on telecom operators in order to weed out dependency on Huawei. In addition, Brazil has raised security concerns with 5G (fifth-generation telecom) equipment suppliers, going so far as to publish a normative instruction raising cybersecurity requirements for network operators.

Finally, in Asia, both Singapore and India have taken a more defensive stance against the Chinese company, with the former excluding (but not banning) Huawei products in its 5G network while the latter announced in August it would phase out the company's equipment over a period of time. On closer examination, the rising tide against Huawei raises two fundamental yet paradoxical problems.

First, since 2018, the Trump administration has at times blundered in its ability to persuade its allies formally to exclude the Chinese company from participating in their markets. By the beginning of 2020, it seemed that much of the world had simply snubbed US demands.

But in August, some saw a reverse trend. Indeed, the launch of the US State Department's "Clean Network Initiative" in late July coupled with the diplomatic reassertion of the Prague Proposals (and its more than 30 signatories) could signify a change in direction.

Yet compared with the sheer size of Huawei's presence in other countries and the tremendous progress the company has had through its recent R&D (research and development) initiatives, these victories seem rather negligible.

Huawei's technology goals are much larger than 5G radio equipment deployment. They involve radically transforming digital connectivity, integrating cutting-edge IoT (Internet of Things) and cyber-physical technologies, and developing a cloud-based infrastructure for industrial platforms - initiatives that are still under way despite US pressure.

Second, framing the US-China tech war as a binary choice of either accepting or rejecting Huawei is far too reductive. Many countries that have not formally excluded Huawei have raised concerns over the security of the ICT (information and communications technology) supply chain at large. Such concerns reflect the emergence of a new discipline centered on trust and cybersecurity within supply chains themselves.

And this discipline is drawing attention from many governments regardless of how they play the geopolitics because of the growing importance of the digital economy for nearly all aspects of life.

Beyond these two paradoxical issues, an emerging trend in technology policy warrants attention, as it not only represents the creation of an industry-driven counterpoint to Huawei but could also become a major vehicle for the US to check China's technological strength if Democratic contender Joe Biden becomes president.

Amid the larger US-China tech war, the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) has become a global buzzword for an anti-China coalition that bills itself as the pragmatic solution to the problem of relying too much on Huawei equipment for 5G networks. The O-RAN Alliance started as a loose organization comprising leading telecommunications companies including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DOCOMO, Orange and China Mobile to develop the next generation of 5G architecture and interfaces.

By promoting network virtualization and software-defined networks centered on open-source architecture, proponents of O-RAN assert that 5G standards that foster open, transparent and interoperable networks will help build a supply chain ecosystem that minimizes the fear of technological fragmentation currently underscoring geopolitics.