Huawei away

Don’t you just love a good conspiracy theory?  When, some six years ago, BT issued an invitation to tender for its so-called ‘21CN’ network upgrades, the major supplier chosen was Huawei, then a little known (but fast-growing) Chinese manufacturer.  In addition to the predictable disappointment expressed by Marconi and other, more familiar suppliers, the decision subsequently led to some concern that the new hardware might be ‘hijacked by China to cripple the UK's communications infrastructure’.  It was reported in early 2009 that UK intelligence officials feared ‘a risk that China may have used its influence on Huawei to ensure 21CN is vulnerable to a remote attack’.

Fears of a Chinese conspiracy later died down in the UK but similar concerns have more recently erupted elsewhere.  Earlier this year, the Australian government blocked Huawei’s participation in the NBN project to build national superfast broadband infrastructure.  The company also faced opposition to its commercial expansion in India and, just this month, a congressional committee report urged U.S. companies to steer clear of Huawei (and ZTE Corp, another Chinese supplier), citing concerns that the Chinese government could install malicious hardware or software in U.S. telecommunications networks.  The report was covered in detail by ‘The Economist’, no less, the magazine having run a major survey last August on Huawei and other Chinese multinationals.  The Economist sought to draw a distinction between UK and US approaches to Chinese procurement:

“America has no effective system of supply-chain checks. In Britain, by contrast, where BT is a big customer, Huawei has established a unit (run in close co-operation with GCHQ, Britain’s signals-intelligence agency) with security-cleared personnel, including former employees of GCHQ, who vet gear from China before it is installed.”

I was still radiating in the warm glow from this reliable assurance when I saw the headline in last Wednesday’s Guardian: 

“Huawei's relationship with BT under investigation by MPs”