How Can America Make the World Shun Huawei?
In short, the White House has been trying for a year to get allies, particularly in Europe, to impose bans against using Huawei equipment inside the new wireless networks, known as 5G, that will become available starting this year. 5G is seen as critical infrastructure for a quickly digitizing economy, increasing phone data speeds but also creating new opportunities in robotics, transportation, manufacturing and artificial intelligence.
The United States says using Huawei equipment in the new networks will create a grave vulnerability that the Chinese government will exploit. It’s a dramatic and worrying accusation — if true. But the Trump administration hasn’t provided much hard evidence.
Instead, American officials have tried to gain support by rehashing China’s history of cyber misbehavior and President Xi Jinping’s increasing control over the Chinese economy.
Perhaps sensing a momentum shift, Huawei has ratcheted up its opposition to the American campaign. On Monday, a Huawei executive, Vincent Peng, said cybersecurity was a “technical challenge, not a political challenge.” The next morning, Guo Ping, the company’s rotating chairman, said the United States had a more checkered history of espionage than Huawei, referring to the whistle-blower Edward J. Snowden’s disclosures in 2013 of an internet surveillance program by American spy agencies and their allies.
But the debate is worth following. Huawei foreshadows conflicts about important emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, in which China is developing an expertise that the United States and its allies are likely to view as an economic and security threat.
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/technology/huawei-mwc-barcelona.html