Rep. Mike Gallagher on Friday warned Conservative Political Action Conference attendees that the U.S. must win the technology race with China in order to maintain its global dominance.
“Figuring out how we push back against the Chinese Communist Party and counter the techno-fascist Maoists in Beijing, that is the real threat we face right now,” the Wisconsin Republican said at the conference in Oxon Hill, Md.
Gallagher said one priority for the U.S. is to become the first country to build a G5 wireless network. But he said the best way to get there is to rely on the free market system. He said while some think China has an edge because it can control the activities of its companies directly, the U.S. should dismiss the rising demand for socialist systems from Democrats.
“If we continue to go down the road of socialism-light in America, we will lose this competition without firing a shot,” he said. “We will defeat ourselves far sooner than anyone in the Chinese Community Party can defeat us.”
Telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics manufacturer Huawei is leading the charge in China’s efforts to dominate 5G technology and has established contracts with over 30 countries in the global south, a move that puts China on the path towards wireless broadband dominance.
The Chinese company has already run into problems with U.S. officials and other international actors in the past. In 2012, the federal government banned the use of Huawei networking equipment after accusations that the telecommunications company was filtering information gathered from its networks directly to the Chinese government. Canadian officials arrested Wanzhou Meng, daughter of billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei and the company’s chief financial officer, in December on behalf of the U.S.
The African Union last year also accused Huawei of spying on high-level meetings after data-sweeping the organization’s headquarters the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa between 2012-2017.
In January, the Department of Justice disclosed a 23-count indictment document, including evasion of sanctions against Iran and theft of American intellectual property. The latter has been a major sticking point in the U.S.’ ongoing trade negotiations with China.
U.S. officials have long viewed Huawei as a national security threat and have launched a campaign to dissuade the international community from engaging in contractual talks with the company for building our its 5G infrastructure. Trump has called for the nation’s largest technology firms to ramp up their deployment of 5G technology or risk getting “left behind.”
