‘Princess of Huawei’ fights to prevent US extradition
The Chinese giant is offering Britain a false choice on 5G: us or no one. There are safer alternatives
THE extradition of Meng Wanzhou, the “Princess of Huawei”, would “embarrass” Canada and undermine its autonomy, lawyers argued during the first day of a court case that has whipped up a geopolitical storm between China and the West.
Lawyers acting for Ms Meng, the daughter of the tech giant’s founder, sought to convince a judge that charges against Ms Weng would not be illegal in Canada and did not reach the threshold for the “double criminality” principle that this week’s hearing hangs on.
Judge Heather Holmes must decide whether the charges would constitute a crime if it occurred in Canada.
The US has accused Ms Meng of breaking sanctions with Iran and lying to the HSBC bank to approve a loan by masquerading the origins of a Huawei affiliate in Tehran. Canada does not restrict trade with Iran. However, the prosecution said Ms Meng’s lie amounted to fraud.
The defence accused the US of undermining “Canada’s authority as a sovereign state” and said it was a “fiction” to contend that the US had a personal interest in policing “private dealings between a private bank and a private citizen on the other side of the world”.
Ms Meng, 47, was arrested in a Vancouver airport in December 2018 and has spent more than a year reading and painting in a £4 million mansion, one of several properties she owns in Vancouver, while on £6million bail.
She has become a symbol of a fractured relationship between the US and China, and dragged a previously neutral Canada into the mix.
Shortly after her arrest, Chinese authorities detained two Canadians living in China – Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a consultant – who claim to have endured hours of interrogation and say they are forced to sleep with the lights on. China has accused them of espionage.
If you had a neighbour who came over and rummaged through your garage tools every day, occasionally slipping silverware from your kitchen, would you trust him to redo the locks on your house? How about to install a state-of-the-art new security system? Of course not.
Yet when it comes to updating telecommunication networks to 5G, some countries are considering doing effectively that with Huawei, a Chinese state-directed company with a history of alleged intellectual property theft and enabling the spread of digital authoritarianism. Despite warnings from its own experts, I am alarmed to see the UK framing its decision on 5G as a false choice between Huawei today or lagging behind forever. Compelling market alternatives to Huawei exist, despite Beijing’s best efforts to tilt the market through subsidies and political pressure.
Those who argue in favour of using Huawei’s equipment contend that the risks can be mitigated, especially if its kit is reduced to “non-core,” nonessential parts of the network. But the strength of 5G is that the core and periphery of a network are one and the same, meaning that giving Huawei any access poses a tremendous risk.
Furthermore, the software requirements of a 5G network require an unmanageable amount of code to review for security, creating numerous vulnerabilities for Chinese intrusion. Once the equipment and software are on the system, the question is whether you trust the vendor. Huawei should fail that test.
The security problems are so severe that the UK National Cybersecurity Centre concluded that mitigation was nearly impossible. Private cybersecurity firm Finite State reached the same conclusion: Huawei’s equipment contains vulnerabilities that the company has failed to address. This suggests Huawei is either deliberately keeping the vulnerabilities in its equipment or, at best, lacks the competence to correct these grave, long-identified problems.
Democratic societies also cannot ignore Huawei’s complicity in China’s policy of mass internment in Xinjiang. Since 2014, it has collaborated with
China’s public security forces to build the surveillance systems in the region. Beijing has locked up over 1 million Uighurs and other minorities in China, provided financial incentives for other companies to use forced labour, and instituted a policy of mandatory cultural reeducation.
But there is a simpler question at hand: why rush toward Huawei, while there are other, safer options available?
European companies Ericsson and Nokia, and Korea’s Samsung all offer alternatives. These firms are based in democratic states with functional legal systems and conduct business with fairness and transparency. Their ownership structures are clear. Their legal responsibilities to their home governments are clear. None of these things can be said of Huawei or the Communist Party of China.
By wisely deciding to avoid Huawei, the United States, Japan, Australia, the Czech Republic, New Zealand and others are facilitating an emerging 5G market protected from China’s predatory economic practices and national security threats. Further, there is a chance to join efforts to come up with promising alternatives. In the US, for example, we have put forward legislation to create an innovation fund for 5G technologies at home and abroad. Rejecting Huawei would not mean the UK going it alone, but joining a coalition of like-minded countries determined to ensure that effective, market-based alternatives are available. If the UK rejects Huawei, it strengthens this market by adding the world’s fifth-largest economy to it.
Moreover, emerging softwarecentric 5G solutions may soon make Huawei’s equipment-centric approach obsolete. The world may be on the cusp of technological revolution with 5G, but that revolution is ongoing. Software-based 5G solutions are already providing better quality connections while lowering prices.
Huawei presents potential clients with a set of false choices: between themselves and no one; choose them today or be left behind forever. This dishonest framing endangers British security and risks the country’s autonomy. We should not mince our words: opening the door to Huawei would effectively expose the inner workings of British national security, industry, and society to Chinese ears for a generation. It would be a tremendous mistake.
The UK should not underestimate the level of concern about this decision in the US. It is not bluff or bluster. Rather, when the administration warns of the national security damage, it represents a genuine plea from one ally to another.