Huawei Is a Paralyzing Dilemma for the West
Western democracies are struggling to balance the geopolitical challenge of China with their need for 5G technology. A common approach is essential.
Except not yet, and not everywhere.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergGeopolitics is a difficult enough subject. When it’s wrapped inside impenetrable technical jargon and fiddly gadgets, it can become paralyzing. This, roughly, is what’s happened to western countries as two things collide: the ominous rise of authoritarian China and the global shift to fifth-generation wireless data infrastructure, the basis of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution.
That’s because a Chinese company, Huawei Technologies Co., sits at the intersection of those two developments, and the West has to decide whether it can be trusted to build its new 5G networks. The U.S., China’s geopolitical foil, has banned Huawei from its own market and wants allies to do the same. Australia and Japan have in effect followed. Others thinking about excluding Huawei include New Zealand, Canada, India, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Poland.