Canada confirmed on the 19th (local time) that they will ban Chinese telecommunication equipment manufacturers such as Huawei and ZTE due to security concerns in the 5G business. With Canada’s participation, all members of the U.S.-led secret information sharing alliance “Five Eyes” (U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) will turn their backs on Chinese telecommunications companies.
According to Reuters, Canadian Industry Minister Francois Philippe Champagne said, “Companies that have already installed Chinese 5G devices should stop using them and remove them by June 2024 according to the government’s announcement.” He added that Chinese 4G devices should also be removed by the end of 2027. Canadian telecommunications companies have reportedly purchased $546 million worth of Huawei telecommunications equipment over the past few years.
This is due to security concerns about Chinese 5G devices that have been raised in the West. They say that they can make “back doors” (a means of penetrating the network without certification) in network equipment supplied by these companies to foreign countries and use them to collect confidential information or launch cyber attacks according to the Chinese government’s orders in the future. Canadian Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino explained that the exclusion was an “essential measure” as skepticism about China’s credibility grew.
Earlier in 2019, the U.S. put Huawei on a blacklist that threatens national security and asked for government approval when dealing with domestic companies. The British daily Guardian explained that the UK, New Zealand, and Australia also joined the exclusion list, and Canada has also been under pressure to ban Huawei devices for years.
In response, the Canadian government announced in September 2018 that it would review the threat Huawei’s equipment could pose to national security, but in December of the same year, Huawei Vice Chairman Meng Wanzhou was arrested at the request of the U.S. government and the exclusion was suspended.
The Guardian said, “The Chinese government has already warned that exclusion from telecommunications companies could trigger retaliatory measures,” raising the possibility that the relationship between the two countries could cool down again.
