Great Britain is agonizing over how to deal with the People’s Republic of China’s Huawei Technologies Co and the latter’s desire to supply the nation’s 5G mobile network. On the matter of Huawei’s having supplied the predecessor 4G network, Great Britain thinks it had arrived at “an understanding” with Huawei concerning the latter’s behavior vis-à-vis the installed 4G—which, astonishingly, allowed Huawei to monitor “aspects” of 4G tech. Britain’s MI6 head, Alex Younger, seems to be the chief agonizer.
5G will by and large be based on Chinese technology, chiefly with Huawei. We need to decide whether we are comfortable with the ownership of these platforms in the case where our allies take quite a definite position…This is not straightforward[.]
Why must Huawei be the supplier of Britain’s 5G network?
And: Huawei is an arm of the People’s Republic of China government—how is this not a straightforward decision? Why is it so hard to decide whether the nation wants to let the PRC government spy on every aspect of the British government, its defense, its economy, its citizens?