Editor's note: Clive Williams is a visiting professor at the ANU and an adjunct professor at ADFA. He worked in the Defence Signals Directorate and was Director of Security Intelligence in Defence. The article first appeared on The Canberra Times. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.  

Much of the recent media reporting about the potential security threat posed by Huawei telecommunications and networking equipment, and Huawei consumer electronics products, is poorly informed and smacks of hysteria.

Huawei (meaning “Splendid Act” or “Able China”) was started in China in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former People's Liberation Army engineer. He started by developing phone switches but soon realized that future success in the electronics industry required advanced research. Some of Huawei's early research knowledge may have come from China's global industrial espionage program.

Although China has managed to shortcut research across-the-board through industrial espionage, I suspect that China's advanced IT capabilities largely came about because the U.S. leaked like a sieve during a critical period of IT development.

When I worked at the University of California at San Diego in 2003, UCSD had an advanced master's program in IT studies. Most of the students were from China. They were regularly lectured by managers and leading researchers from Silicon Valley about research breakthroughs and what revolutionary IT developments were coming down the track. Little wonder that China was soon ahead of the U.S. in some areas.

Huawei is now a multinational company and the world's largest producer of electronic products. It has cooperative arrangements with 80 percent of the world's telecom companies so it's very common for its products to be integrated into all types of telecommunications systems.

Huawei invests more than any of its competitors on research and development – an estimated 15 billion U.S. dollars in 2018. It has research institutes in 21 countries – including the U.S., UK, and Canada, and has international programs to identify and employ the best and brightest technical graduates from universities.

Huawei has a workforce of 170,000 and in 2017 its revenue was 92.5 billion U.S. dollars. 76,000 of its workforce are engaged in research and development.

It is therefore not surprising that Huawei has been ahead of its competitors in developing the fifth generation of cellular mobile communications technology – 5G – that will be a key part of all advanced nations' critical infrastructure into the future.

Huawei is now more likely to be the target of industrial espionage and intelligence collection than the beneficiary of it.

In 2014 The New York Times reported (based on documents leaked by defector Edward Snowden) that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) had since 2007 been operating a covert program against Huawei. This had involved breaking into Huawei's internal networks, including its headquarters' networks and founder Ren Zhengfei's communications.

Warnings about the security threat posed by Huawei first emanated from the U.S. 10 years ago and seemed intended to benefit American competitors and prevent mergers or takeovers of American companies.

In 2013, Michael Hayden, former head of NSA (and Director of Motorola Solutions), claimed that he had seen “hard evidence of backdoors” in Huawei's networking equipment, that Huawei engaged in espionage, and that it shared its knowledge of foreign telecommunications systems with the Chinese government.

It should be noted that Huawei and Motorola Solutions had been engaged in intellectual property disputes for several years.

Huawei's global cyber security officer, John Suffolk, described the comments made by Hayden as "tired, unsubstantiated, defamatory remarks" and challenged him and other critics to present any evidence publicly. They did not do so, but the U.S. is under increasing pressure to provide more detailed public information, particularly after President Trump banned all government agencies and contractors from using Huawei and ZTE technology.

Five-Eyes partners Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK have since expressed similar concerns that the use of Huawei telecommunications equipment, particularly in 5G networks could pose "significant security risks". However, Canada is carrying out its own security review and the UK is still considering whether Huawei should be allowed to participate in the UK's 5G rollout.

Australia has always maintained higher protective security standards than the U.S. to ensure the flow to Australia of critical U.S. intelligence is not jeopardized. This probably led the Australian government to be the first to ban Huawei from contributing to its 5G network infrastructure; New Zealand then followed suit.

The main security concern is that Huawei could be used by the Chinese government to engage in espionage and information warfare. (There is no available evidence that it has done so to date.) This is unfortunate for Huawei because the company seems focussed on being commercially successful – not on espionage or cyber warfare.

The reality is that all national telecommunications companies cooperate with their national signals and security intelligence organizations because it is in their interest to do so.

While China could force Huawei to do its bidding, it could also exploit vulnerabilities in products installed in Australia by leading U.S. competitor companies like Qualcomm and Intel if it chose to do so. China is probably the world's most advanced hacking nation as evidenced by the recent “Cloud Hopper” revelations.

For its part, Huawei claims that its products "[pose] no greater cybersecurity risk than any ICT vendor, sharing as we do common global supply chains and production capabilities".

As long as advanced telecommunications products (including 5G) are installed in Australia by competent security-vetted Australian technicians who understand the technology, there should not be a security problem from using foreign products.

The likely alternative to adopting Huawei's 5G technology is to use a lesser American or European product that may also be compromisable – and probably more expensive.

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