Wolfgang Munchau je postavil edino logično vprašanje v zadevi Huawei. Problem najbrž ni v tehnološki dovršenosti Huaweia ali v tem, da bi kitajska komunistična partija prisluškovala italijanski mafiji ali Janezu iz Šentflorjana, pač pa v tem, da če gredo podatki prek 5G mreže na Kitajsko, do njih ne morejo Američani. Ameriške obveščevalne agencije pa seveda želijo obdržati monopol nad spremljanjem vseh elektronskih komunikacij.

Italian, German and Belgian police scored a huge success two days ago in their fight against the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia organisation, which operates like a European corporation. We are not interested in police stories, but a snippet peaked our interest that has some relevance to a debate much more central to our reservation. It is about data security.

The German police said they had trouble locating the most senior members of the crime ring in the past because they could not locate them. The ’Ndrangheta used to be old-school. They did not use mobile phones, and preferred to drive hundreds of kilometres in their cars to meet up. The German end of the raid succeeded this time because police were able to locate the mobile phone of one of the main suspects. The interesting question for us is how did they do this?

When intelligence agencies, the German one included, warn about Huawei as a provider of 5G technology, they are claiming that Huawei would send the data to China. Huawei has retorted that it is technically feasible to stop this, and has offered to co-operate. Our, albeit limited understanding of this matter, is that Huawei is technically right. If we were really serious about adding a security lawyer, we would be able to do this. The question is: do we want to? We are wondering whether the stated reasons by the US and European security agencies are genuine. Do we really fear that the Chinese government can listen in on the ’Ndrangheta, or do we fear we won’t be able to do this ourselves anymore? We recall that the US managed to eavesdrop on Angela Merkel, who has been one of the big supporters of Huawei’s 5G engagement in Germany. We would assume that her perspective on data security threat is a different one from that of the official narratives.

The Iraq weapons-of-mass-destruction fiasco should be a warning that we should demand incontrovertible proof from security agencies, and not base our political decisions on blind trust. If Huawei poses a security threat, we feel that it is a claim that needs to be subjected to the same standard.

Vir: Wolfgang Munchau, Eurointelligence