Does anyone remember Huawei and the concerns over its involvement in Canada’s 5G infrastructure?
In the country’s current COVID-19 war footing, it’s easy to forget about pretty much any subject that is not pandemic related. But any business or resident concerned about the integrity of Canada’s national infrastructure cannot afford to forget about the Huawei 5G development factor. A new Macdonald-Laurier Institute report details why. Atop the inventory of those reasons why, according to report author Duanjie Chen: Huawei’s direct link to the Chinese Communist Party. As China’s reprisal response to Canada’s arrest of Huawei CEO Meng Wanzhou has illustrated, that connection cannot be taken lightly. Especially when considering that Canada’s 5G network will be the conduit to connect, Chen notes, everything from cellphones and sewage plants to missile launch pads. Huawei Risk is a China Risk: Why Canada Needs to Ban Huawei’s Involvement in 5G outlines how a nondescript vendor of switchboards with little record of innovation has magically risen to become a global force in 5G network technologies. An estimated US$75 billion in tax breaks and other financial largesse from China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party could be one factor. Huawei has also benefited from what Chen’s report says is its government actions in “blocking foreign entries to the Chinese market” and the Chinese state’s “orchestrated theft of foreign commercial secrets” to help power Huawei’s meteoric rise in the 5G tech world. China’s game plan for achieving global domination in what is a critical sector for the control of major infrastructure projects and operations has ensured that Huawei has been able to undercut rivals’ prices and secure a wide range of technical patents at bargain-basement prices. Surely, a company with that background and its intimate relationship with a totalitarian state is not the right one to be embedded in the backbone of Canada’s future communication infrastructure and network.
