Pelosi joins Huawei warnings
In Germany, speaker tries to convince EU allies of threat
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday backed President Donald Trump’s assessment of the threat posed by countries using Huawei Technologies Co. equipment to build 5G networks.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Pelosi warned European allies that it would be dangerous to allow a company with connections to the Chinese government to build global information networks, echoing some of the points that President Donald Trump’s administration has been trying to drive home with American partners.
“Nations cannot cede telecommunications infrastructure to China for financial expediency,” Pelosi said. Speaking about Chinese President Xi Jinping, she said such an “ill-conceived concession will only embolden Xi as he undermines democratic values, human rights, economic independence and national security.”
The strong words from a Democratic Party leader offered a point of accordance with the president the week after the Republican-led Senate acquitted him on the House’s two articles of impeachment.
“In terms of some of these
issues like Huawei, we have bipartisan agreement on that,” Pelosi said. “I always say to members: Don’t be against something because President Trump might be for it. If there happens to be collateral benefit so be it, and let’s all share in the responsibility to do something and the credit when we get it done.”
The Trump administration has lobbied European allies to reject Huawei equipment as they invest in the next generation of technology. Pelosi said Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. agree that Huawei poses a threat to democratic values.
“If you want a free flow of information, if you want to build a collective conscience of values and respect for human rights, don’t go with Huawei,” Pelosi said.
The United Kingdom and the European Union introduced policies last month that allow Huawei’s partial participation in next-generation wireless networks. Trump responded by berating U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, having spent months trying to persuade the British government not to allow the Chinese company to take a role in fast 5G networks.
“Allowing the Sinification of 5G would be to choose autocracy over democracy,” Pelosi said in Munich. “We must instead move to an internationalization of digital infrastructure that does not enable an autocracy. We must invest in other viable options that will take us into the future while preserving our values and institutions.”
Pelosi said “most insidious form of aggression” is for a country like China to infiltrate technology infrastructure with a company “dominated by an autocratic government that does not share our values.”
The California Democrat urged European leaders to plan for the next generation of technology by building “something together that will be about freedom of information.”
“I tell you, unequivocally and without any hesitation,” Pelosi said of Huawei technology, “be very careful when you go down this path unless you want to end up with a society like China.”
Also in Munich on Friday, Robert Blair, a senior adviser to Trump, said Britain’s decision to allow Huawei into its 5G network will not disrupt overall intelligence-sharing with the United States.
Blair said Washington would still have to take a “hard look” at the impact, but the flow of intelligence would not be affected.
“There will be no erosion in our overall intelligence-sharing,” he said.
The comments appeared at odds from those from other officials in the administration, coming a day after Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, reasserted that a German decision to allow 5G into their network would mean Washington would not be able to share intelligence at the same level.
The United States see Huawei’s 5G participation as a fundamental security threat, but its efforts to bring Europe into line with its thinking take place as trans-Atlantic relations grow thornier. European countries that might once have been willing to extend some goodwill toward following U.S. requests are becoming increasingly obstreperous, frustrated by what leaders see as Trump’s go-it-alone approach.
Some European politicians discount the U.S. warnings about Huawei, saying that they are simply part of Trump’s broader trade war with China. Or they say that everyone spies, and that the United States is little different from China.
On Friday, it was clear that German leaders were deeply mistrustful of Trump’s approach to global affairs, as one after another stepped to the lectern at the security conference to say that world affairs were slipping back to a might-makes-right era.
“We are witnessing an increasingly destructive dynamic in international politics,” Germany’s ceremonial president Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. “Year by year we are moving further way from the goal: international cooperation in order to create a more peaceful world.”
The topic of 5G factored high in discussions on Friday. Europe, by increments, has adopted a more skeptical stance toward using Huawei equipment for its 5G networks. The European Commission last month announced a sophisticated set of guidelines that its 27 member nations can use to decide whether to invest in Chinese equipment.
Although the EU “tool kit” is nonbinding, the guidelines, if followed, would have the likely effect of pushing China out of the 5G market. It could give countries the political cover to push back against Beijing — and it could create pressure for countries that do choose Huawei to explain their reasoning.
Germany is yet to announce its official position, but Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union published a position that stopped short of a total ban but was still more cautious toward the Chinese manufacturer than British policymakers. It was a shift toward skepticism of Beijing after a sharp, monthslong debate among lawmakers in the party.
To add weight to its case the United States is also trying to present other countries with alternatives to Huawei by ramping up cooperation with other companies in the private sector including Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia, Blair said. He described such moves as part of a new initiative “try to put together innovators, disrupters, big data, big tech, to chart out the next generation of 5G.”
He said the exact shape of the cooperation with the private sector was still being discussed but would take place in a matter of “months” rather than “years.”
“At this point it’s political, what can everybody bring to the table?,” he said. “It’s past notional, it’s not down to the nitty-gritty.”
There have been conflicting signals from the Trump administration over its strategy to foster competition with Huawei. Last week, Attorney General William Barr suggested that the United States invest in Nokia and Ericsson to buoy their market prospects. The following day, however, Vice President Mike Pence dismissed the suggestion.
The four major U.S. wireless carriers — AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile — have all pledged not to use Huawei in their 5G networks, and the Chinese company is basically shut out of the American market, except for some small regional carriers. The major carriers have been using Nokia, Ericsson and South Korea’s Samsung for their mobile networks.