Closing the back door
U.S. is taking on Huawei at the right time
The Justice Department’s recent charges against Chinese telecom giant Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, offer a detailed outline of how the company stole trade secrets from American companies, going so far as to pay bonuses to employees who swiped important information from its rivals.
Huawei has long been suspected of these kind of corporate shenanigans. The company has been informally banned in the U.S. because of suspicions that it installs “back doors” into its equipment, which could allow for surveillance or cyber attacks. But according to the charges, Huawei employees weren’t afraid to commit more traditional forms of theft.
The indictment alleges that in one instance, a Huawei engineer walked out of T-Mobile’s offices with some robotic technology slipped into his bag. After snapping some photos of the equipment, the engineer returned the item, claiming it was a mistake. Meanwhile, the information about TMobile’s robotic technology was delivered to Huawei headquarters.
In spite of its allegedly illicit activities, Huawei has remained a major technological innovator. The company is a leading developer of the forthcoming 5G networks, which are expected to offer the fastest wireless speeds to date. By being at the forefront of this technology, Huawei has hoped to build its 5G networks throughout Europe, Asia and Africa. This would allow for enormous economic gain as well as the installation of the aforementioned “back doors” that would allow the Chinese government to capture communications over the network.
By taking on Huawei, the U.S. has thrown the company’s plan into flux and it couldn’t have come too soon. Huawei’s rampant and unrepentant violations of the law, along with its threat to cybersecurity, have made it a case study in corporate malfeasance. The Justice Department would have been wise to hold Huawei to account under any circumstances, but with the promise of 5G just ahead, the threat should be stopped just before it gets any greater.