[ Unfortunately for Huawei, though, its new U.S. charm offensive is likely to fail — while the campaign to confront it, in Washington and other Western capitals, is just getting started. Huawei’s public relations campaign is meant to push back against the U.S. government’s effort to exclude Huawei technology from U.S. and other Western networks because of the security vulnerability represented by the company’s products.]
"As 5G equipment must be imported from somewhere, it’s a choice of which country’s foreign intelligence efforts they might be exposed to. As Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo put it in an interview with the South China Morning Post earlier this year, the suggestion that using Huawei equipment would allow the Chinese government to spy on customers was one-sided.
"The US concern partly stemmed from its worries that if more countries used Huawei, American intelligence could be prevented from doing its own snooping, he said.
"While US companies are not currently offering comparable alternative technology to Huawei’s and Washington insists it does not engage in the same spying activities as China, analysts say if the past is an indication, there are reasons to be sceptical. Details from whistle-blower Edward Snowden six years ago suggested US National Security Agency surveillance systems collected information from citizens and world leaders, and hacked into computers in other countries, including China. Publicly-available information has also pointed to close ties between the NSA and Silicon Valley."
