Mcparland: Huawei’s implausible promises,

From the day they first learn how to avoid giving a direct answer, politicians, premiers, prime ministers and party leaders instinctively understand the point of political advertising campaigns. They don’t exist to provide pertinent information to an engaged public, which has many better and more objective sources to tap. They’re there to sway the ill-informed, uninformed and apathetic. That is presumably why Huawei Technologies has organized a feel-good campaign in support of its bid to include its equipment in Canada’s new 5G technology networks.

There is well-founded international resistance to Huawei, based on fears it will open the door for Beijing to further its global spying activities. Huawei insists it would never stoop to stealing or sharing information on unsuspecting customers, no matter how much China’s rulers may insist on it, and has assembled a small army of consultants, lobbyists and public relations experts to plead its case. Nonetheless the case against it is straightforward: either you trust China’s Communist supremos to play by international rules and Canadian law, despite a vast and lengthy history of doing nothing of the kind, or you don’t. Unquestionably, Canada shouldn’t.

Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, claims that “no law in China requires any company to install mandatory backdoors (for spying) in its equipment,” and that “I will never do anything to harm any country in the world.” Huawei’s vice-president of corporate affairs last week echoed that claim, insisting “Huawei Canada has, and we will continue, to act to protect our employees, our

customers and our investments.”

Ren’s daughter, Meng Wanzhou, who has been detained in Vancouver since December awaiting an extradition hearing, chose this moment to publicly open her heart, writing that she’d been left in tears by the support she’s received from Huawei employees, attesting that “this kind of connection, which is close and warm, is as beautiful as spring.”

Meng is spending her spring in a $13-million Vancouver mansion, having been granted approval to leave a lesser mansion once the big one had been renovated. Her team of high-priced lawyers has been assembling a case claiming her constitutional rights have been violated, while Beijing has retaliated by seizing Canadians in China on spurious allegations, tossing them in cells and interrogating them for up to eight hours a day.

It doesn’ t take much more than a Google search to dispel the pleasant fantasy Huawei is trying to sell. Despite what Ren may say, there is absolutely a law in China requiring his company to do as Beijing asks. It’s called the National Intelligence law and it states that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law.” Intelligence agencies are empowered to demand such assistance. Nowhere does it say “except for Huawei.”

Chinese apologists have tried to explain away the law, but the words speak for themselves. Just as self-evident is the real nature of the Chinese regime, which is holding Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, subjecting them to constant surveillance, blocking them from family or lawyers, and occasionally parading them before cameras as leverage on Ottawa as the Meng case wends its way towards a hearing.

Beijing’ sap pro a ch to rights and law is equally evident in another current case, that of Meng Hongwei, a veteran Chinese security official who was elected the first Chinese president of Interpol, the international police agency.

He disappeared suddenly while on a trip home from Interpol headquarters in France. Despite a Chinese law requiring that a detainee’s family be notified within 24 hours, he was held in secret for 12 days, then stripped of his position and expelled from the party on allegations of taking bribes, for which no evidence was offered. Colleagues suggested he had offended Chinese superiors by failing to adequately bend to orders from Beijing in his Interpol duties. His wife and children — who went into hiding fearing kidnap attempts — have been granted asylum in France.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order that would ban Huawei from U.S. networks this week. Canada’s Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale is awaiting a national security review before the federal cabinet makes its decision on Huawei, but the assessment shouldn’t represent anything more than window dressing given the stark choice at hand. If Canada wants to retain its access to shared intelligence with Washington it has no choice but to keep China as far as possible from Canadian networks. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made that clear when he warned Britain that a decision in favour of Huawei would “impede the United States’ ability to share certain information within trusted networks.” Noting China’s aggressive hacking operations and propensity for stealing industrial secrets, he asked, “Why would anyone grant such power to a regime that has already grossly violated cyberspace?”

Why indeed? As a member of the Five Eyes intelligence network, Canada’s responsibility is to its citizens and allies, not a corporate behemoth rooted in a one-party state hostile to Western values. China’s approach to diplomacy is to issue threats and take hostages. Our national interests and prosperity reside far more in present and future U.S. administrations than with communist overlords who rule by fear and fiat.

It’s fair enough to examine Huawei’s claims, but no one should be unwise enough to take the company at its word. China can’t be trusted, and risking Canadians’ security by believing otherwise would be dangerous, foolish and the height of irresponsibility.