Countering China’s cell-phone espionage offensive

By Eli Lake

When I heard the news of the arrest in Canada of Wanzhou Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer, my thoughts turned to Al Capone.
Capone was targeted for running Chicago’s underworld but was ultimately brought down for tax evasion.

Canadian authorities detained Meng on what appears to be Huawei’s evasion of US sanctions against Iran.
These are serious allegations, but US intelligence agencies have an even greater concern: that China’s largest telecom company will allow the Chinese state to monitor the electronic communications of anyone using Huawei technology.
This is why leaders of US spy agencies in February urged Americans not to use Huawei or ZTE phones. 

This is why Australia effectively banned Huawei from helping build its 5G wireless network this year.
Concern about Huawei spying is also why, in October, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Mark Warner of Virginia warned Canada’s prime minister that Canada’s participation in joint intelligence activities with the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand may be curtailed if Canada allows Huawei to help build or maintain the country’s 5G wireless network.
In some ways these concerns about Huawei are old news.
In 2012, the House Intelligence Committee released a comprehensive report on Huawei and ZTE that concluded these companies give China’s military and intelligence agencies access to the US telecommunication network.
“Inserting malicious hardware or software implants into Chinese-manufactured telecommunications components and systems headed for US customers could allow Beijing to shut down or degrade critical national security systems in a time of crisis or war,” it said.
Until recently, though, it was difficult to say definitively that Huawei acts as an agent of the Chinese government.
Yes, the company’s founder (and Meng’s father), Ren Zhengfei, was a technician for the People’s Liberation Army before founding Huawei in 1987.
And the Chinese government has invested tens of billions of dollars in Huawei, giving it a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.
Not until China passed its National Intelligence Law and a related cybersecurity law in 2017, however, did it become clear that Chinese companies like Huawei are now obliged to assist the Chinese state when it comes to espionage.
Many nations have statutes that require a company’s cooperation with law enforcement on national-security grounds.
But the new Chinese laws would also compel corporations to assist in offensive intelligence operations.
Cooperation, says an analysis in Lawfare, would mean handing over access to “key business and personal data (which must be stored in China), proprietary codes, and other intellectual property.”
In some ways the Chinese are following the US lead.
As documents disclosed by former contractor Edward Snowden revealed, the National Security Agency had a program to pay US telecom companies for access to their customers’ data.
The NSA has a long history of cooperation with the first generation of American telecom companies, such as AT&T, which gave the US and its English-speaking allies a huge technical intelligence advantage over the Soviet Union.
There are also important differences here.
The American government’s own surveillance apparatus isn’t used to steal technology for the benefit of US corporations. 
Nor is the US government building a domestic spying network to evaluate the social behavior of its citizens.
All of this brings us back to Huawei.
It’s good to see the US finally taking more concrete action against the telecom giant that American spies have been warning about for nearly a decade.
But prosecuting the company’s executives for violating sanctions doesn’t address the bigger threat Huawei poses.
For that, America and its allies must make sure Huawei is kept far away from their cell phone towers.

Chinese Cyberespionage

Australia Bans Huawei From Building 5G Wireless Network
By Raymond Zhong

BEIJING — Cyberespionage concerns surrounding Huawei have kept the Chinese technology giant out of the United States. 

Now it has cost the company lucractive business in another country: Australia.

The Australian government had barred it and another rogue Chinese company, ZTE, from providing equipment to support the country’s new telecommunications networks. 

Mobile carriers around the world have been preparing to build infrastructure using fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless technology, which promises to enable the ultrafast communications necessary for technologies such as self-driving cars.
On Twitter, Huawei called the decision an “extremely disappointing result for consumers.” 

A ZTE spokeswoman declined to comment.
Huawei, one of the world’s largest makers of telecom gear and smartphones, already sells equipment to major Australian telecom carriers. 

In a statement on Thursday, two Australian ministers indicated that the government would move to exclude certain equipment vendors from the nation’s 5G networks. 

Companies that “are  subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government” pose unacceptable security risks, the ministers said.
One of those ministers, Scott Morrison, is challenging Australia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, for leadership of the country.
Neither Huawei nor ZTE were specifically named in the Australian statement. 

But the two companies’ ties to Beijing have long been cited by United States officials to justify keeping them out of American mobile networks.

Large American wireless carriers have for years shunned both its and ZTE’s equipment.
With such concerns about Chinese technology continuing to spread globally, it seems increasingly unlikely that the tech cold war between China and the United States will be reconciled quickly.
More and more, the two economic powerhouses view the race to develop key technologies, 5G wireless included, in strategic as well as commercial terms. 

Both have stood up for their own national tech champions. 

And they have each sought to kneecap the other’s.
ZTE was nearly driven out of business earlier this year after the United States Department of Commerce barred American firms from selling components to the company. 

The sanctions, imposed as punishment for illegal sales made by ZTE in Iran and North Korea, were later lifted to help defuse tensions between President Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.
Even Chinese firms’ research partnerships with universities in the United States and Canada have come under scrutiny. 

In June, a group of Washington lawmakers wrote to Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, calling for a review of American universities’ collaborations with Huawei.