Motives hard to prove

These are interesting times for the Chinese telecoms giant, which finds itself in the role of a football in the midst of a mighty kicking match between US president Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping. Hostilities were launched the day before Trump’s and Xi’s summit, when Huawei’s finance chief, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Vancouver on behalf of US authorities investigating her alleged violation of sanctions against Iran. This news sent markets wobbling as investors smelt a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Subsequently the focus has shifted to national security concerns relating to Huawei’s dominance of the technology that drives next-generation 5G mobile products. Of the countries that make up the “Five Eyes” intelligencegathering agreement — the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — Australia has already blocked Huawei from providing equipment for its 5G network and New Zealand is likely to. In the US the Trump administration has been hurling accusations of cyberwarfare and theft of intellectual property with abandon.

Huawei denies any funny business, stressing that it is a private company rather than an organ of state, but there are concerns that no large Chinese firm can operate without the influence of the party, and the passing of a law last year that requires Chinese firms to support national intelligence gathering hardly helps its cause. There’s no doubt that any company that provides the infrastructure that powers the internet could cause a headache. Huawei’s problem is that it is hard to prove its motives are benign.