Huawei launches UK charm offensive: We've provided 2G, 3G and 4G for 20 years, and you're worried about 5G?
- Reference: 1591628168
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/06/08/huawei_uk_charm_offensive/
- Source link:
The cornerstone of this campaign is an open letter addressed to the British public.
"For nearly 20 years, we've supplied the UK's mobile and broadband companies with 3G and 4G. But some now question our role in helping Britain lead the way in 5G," the [1]open letter says.
"While many in cities have fast, reliable connections, others are not so lucky. We know a poor connection makes working from home, or running a small business, harder than it should be. New 5G and full-fibre broadband networks will fix these problems and we're working to bring high-speed connections to every part of the country."
The letter alludes to the Chinese telecommunications giant's ongoing problems with the UK government, which is being [2]heavily leaned on by the US . The Trump administration has placed the Chinese firm on the country's so-called [3]Entity List , barring it from trading with US firms. Separately, it has also [4]excluded it from competing for domestic public tenders for government comms, prompting lawsuits from Huawei.
Some have claimed the Trump administration's concerns have more to do with losing the 5G arms race than anything else, but ostensibly its chief worries have been chalked up to security, with the US government claiming Huawei's 5G kit could be backdoored by Beijing.
For its part, earlier this year, the UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) labelled Huawei as a [5]"high-risk" vendor over its perceived ties to the Chinese government, and issued strong new rules prohibiting carriers from using the firm's equipment within the core 5G network.
Huawei would be allowed to continue selling non-core equipment, such as the antennas that comprise the radio access network (RAN), but networks would be limited in how much they can use. The DCMS has established a 35 per cent limit, forcing carriers to diversify their footprint with components from other vendors, such as Samsung, Nokia, and Ericsson.
Not going Huawei just yet: UK ministers reportedly rethinking pledge to kick Chinese firm out of telco networks by 2023 [6]READ MORE
Last month, it was reported that the Boris Johnson government [7]had bowed to a plan that would see Huawei's existing 5G network equipment gradually retired by 2023. Rumours of a backtrack soon emerged, with ministers allegedly realising that such a move would be [8]an expensive and logistically challenging endeavour that would delay progress in modernising the UK's cellular networks.
In a media briefing, vice president Victor Zhang emphasised Huawei's opposition to these measures, arguing that they benefit neither the UK nor – naturally – Huawei.
"[5G and fibre broadband] is critical for the UK, especially to recover the economy post-Brexit and post-COVID-19," he said.
"We have been in the UK for 20 years and have worked with customers like BT and Vodafone to deploy broadband from the earliest stage – 2G, 3G, 4G, and copper and fibre broadband – and now we are entering into the new stage with 5G and full-fibre broadband. This is critical for the UK to enable your economic recovery and lead the industrial revolution."
Zhang also expressed hopes that the UK will eventually reconsider (and reverse) its decision to limit Huawei's 5G involvement.
"We believe that the UK will continue to take an evidence-based approach to review what happened here and globally," he said. ®
Sponsored: [9]Taking the Cloud-Native Approach with Microservices
[1] https://twitter.com/HuaweiUK/status/1269904984956641280
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/04/parliament_senate_pressure_uk_huawei_5g/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/15/president_trump_huawei_emergency_ban/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/07/huawei_sues_us_equipment_ban/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/28/uk_says_yes_to_limited_huawei_non_core/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/27/huawei_impossible_remove_uk_networks/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/23/bojo_buckles_huawei_out/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/27/huawei_impossible_remove_uk_networks/
[9] https://go.theregister.com/tl/1956/-8470/taking-the-cloud-native-approach-with-microservices?td=wptl1956
If?
We know the yanks have backdoored out network equipment. What makes the Chinese any more frightening?
Re: If?
Well we do in depth technical assessments and code reviews of all Huawei kit in our telecoms network which we don't for Cisco... I know which of the two I'd trust first! Hint: the one that hasn't had backdoors discovered multiple times
The bigger issue is rising Chinese power
What with so much money going there the increasing economic clout gives them increasing political influence and confidence.
A big concern that I have about China is that it will use this power in ways that I do not like, look at the problems of the Uighur Muslims, recent freedom restrictions in Hong Kong, rhetoric about Taiwan, surveillance of their own population, lack of freedom of speech, ... President Xi Jinping cannot be removed at the ballot box which, IMHO, makes him a dictator of what looks like an increasingly totalitarian state. All of that worries me and I think that we should push back before it gets unstoppable.
I am not saying that Western governments do not have their own problems, our imperial past & some of what the CIA have done is shameful, currently heighligthened black problems but at least I could walk down Whitehall with a placard that said "Bollocks to Boris" without ''disappearing''.
I will not deny a certain amount of preferring 'my lot/friends' to another grouping.
One way of slowing them is to not give them so much money: eg by buying European telecomms kit. It would also benefit employment over here and improve supply chain security. I think that this is part of what is behind the Huawei debacle - although our politicians are coy about saying so.
Re: The bigger issue is rising Chinese power
>by buying European telecomms kit.
is that treason now, or do we have to wait for 31 Jan 2021 ?
Re: The bigger issue is rising Chinese power
Please keep shouting this from the rooftops. I'm amazed how little has been mentioned in the press about HSBC supporting China in Hong Kong.
I started the transfer of my business account away from HSBC today. First Direct account will move once the first transfer has succeeded. Then I'll be selling my investment in a HSBC ETF.
Forget arguments about power or US vs China. The important one is civil liberties and democracy.
Re: The bigger issue is rising Chinese power
Surely Hong Kong is British.
Aren't we "taking back control" sometime soon ?
Re: The bigger issue is rising Chinese power
Nah, we cut them lose and removed their full British Subject status and residency rights so there would not be "HORDES OF HONG KONG CHINESE COMING OVER HERE TAKING OUR JOBS" as certain newspapers and campaign groupes would put it.
Betrayal on a scale that only the British can stomach.
Re: The bigger issue is rising Chinese power
While I agree with most of your post, I don't think it's correct to say that Xi can't be removed at the ballot box. Local party members vote for local reps, then the party reps (at least theoretically) vote for the leader. So far, so similar to the west. The difference is that it's only one party, rather than the multi-party systems that we have. It's the Henry Ford version of choices. There are also factions within the party, preferring more/less modernisation, more/less capitalism etc. However, none of this means that Xi can't be removed.
Yes he seems to be doing his best to cement himself in power, and the hierarchy around him seems to be doing their best to big up that cult of personality, like lots of other fuckwit strongmen around the globe. But in theory, at least, he can be removed by voting.
Re: The bigger issue is rising Chinese power
>The difference is that it's only one party, rather than the multi-party systems that we have
There's a school of thought that suggests we also have a one party system in the West, our parties are really different wings of the same ('capitalist') party.
You can see how this works should one of the parties accidentally elect an executive and leadership that advocates change to the system, most recently with Corbyn and the Labour party. You find he's listed as 'unelectable' and needed to be replaced with someone more reliable. This sort of thing isn't new, although it might be new to people who have no experience of someone like Harold Wilson as Prime Minister. (Suggested reading -- "A Very British Coup", its a work of fiction but rooted in real events.)
The issue of China is simply one of competing economic systems. If the Chinese outperform us and, in doing so, provide for their population's health and welfare, then we're going to get people asking serious questions about what we're doing right or wrong. At the moment all we have to offer large swathes of our population(s) is the vague notion of "freedom" and "democracy", or what used to be called in the old days "Pie in the Sky".
Enough of these rational arguments!
They won't work you know. This is a purely emotional response from a bunch of ra-ra-brexit backbenchers who will do whatever it takes to try and find a trade deal that's not with Europe. And "whatever it takes" currently involves dancing to the strings of the lunatics running the US (into the toilet).
Technical, financial or any other sort of rational arguments are irrelevant. The only way you'll get Huawei kit into the UK is by offering us very, very cheap chicken to go with it.
Swings and roundabouts
> perceived ties to the Chinese government
No worse than more than half of the UK's approved suppliers (approved by the USA, that is) having more than perceived ties to the american 3-letter agencies. Being US-based, they are about as resistant to "pressure" as a blancmange. Further, with Musk's Starlink making a bid to own the whole world's internet, I find it difficult to get upset about Chinese spying. At worst it just levels things out a bit.
Re: Swings and roundabouts
Can you name an American 3 letter agency which routinely performs forced organ harvesting?
'So what the US does bad stuff just like China' is about as clear-cut false equivalence as it's possible to make.
Re: Swings and roundabouts
> forced organ harvesting
Not my biggest concern regarding 5G. Should we expect a hand with a scalpel to morph, terminator-style, out of a Huawei 5G phone?
Re: Swings and roundabouts
Funnily enough, of all the things the Chinese government do wrong I think I have the least problem with that. Once you're dead you're just meat, you may as well be useful meat.
But it's also a distraction. No one in government at any point has said this was to do with human rights or anything other than concerns over the state security apparatus. And on that argument, I find China to be considerably less of a threat than the US.
I suppose they stopped short of saying "If we wanted to back-door your phone network we could have done it years ago" because that would be too easy to misquote or take out of context.
Though of course it's true...if the Chinese Government wanted to monitor our transmissions they could have started doing it 15-20 years ago...