Let’s state the facts: Huawei is not a 5G telecommunications firm in the vein of Ericsson and Nokia. Instead, it is a deniable corporate agent of the People’s Liberation Army’s intelligence department. Huawei simply has a private sector interest alongside its PLA responsibilities.
Now consider Gina Raimondo’s testimony at a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
Nominated by President Biden to serve as commerce secretary, Raimondo was asked by Sen. Ted Cruz whether she would commit to keeping Huawei on the so-called entities list. That trade blacklist bans U.S. commercial dealings with those on it. Huawei was added to the list under the Trump administration. Unfortunately, Raimondo pledged only to consult with Cruz and the Senate on the question of Huawei’s future status.
Raimondo might be acting under explicit instructions from the White House not to offer any China commitments, but the former Rhode Island governor’s response is ridiculous regardless. Huawei’s status should have been an easy answer for the Biden administration. Huawei’s threat capacity stands apart from the other Chinese companies on the entities list for a simple reason — namely, that the U.S. intelligence community has spent years building up a deep insight as to the origins, funding, operation, design, and strategic intent behind Huawei. The high-confidence intelligence picture is clear.
China spends big sums on puppets and propaganda that present Huawei as just another multinational offering cheap telecommunications services to the world. That affordability argument is accurate, but only so far as Huawei is subsidized by the People’s Liberation Army (and with the understanding that Huawei’s technology foundation was built on the back of stolen American intellectual property). But then, there’s the espionage issue. Top line: Huawei’s systems are deliberately riddled with network vulnerabilities. The PLA’s strategy here is that where these network vulnerabilities are detected, Huawei can credibly claim that the flaws are regrettable mistakes — mistakes, that is, instead of deniable designs for malevolent espionage. The PLA’s ambition is vast: to use Huawei as a great global backdoor into the data, discussion, and decisions of China’s foreign competitors. Whether corporate competitors or national governments, Huawei’s 5G networks offer Beijing the prospect of an unprecedented global penetration of private communications. Much of the intelligence evincing this reality remains classified, but when we observe how Huawei executives approach issues such as human rights in Hong Kong, it quickly becomes clear who leads this organization. It is not CEO Ren Zhengfei, but President Xi Jinping.
Huawei’s status on the entities list is, therefore, fundamentally not a question of trade protectionism, but rather of security protection. It’s an area where America’s allies in Europe are watching closely to see whether the Biden administration will respond to their own appeasement of China. And Raimondo has just given Beijing a cause for optimism. The Chinese Foreign Ministry had already identified Raimondo as a good pick for their interests via its Global Times propaganda outlet. A January article noted that “observers expect Raimondo, given her past moderate rhetoric about China, to ease trade tensions with Beijing caused by President Donald Trump and play an ‘active and predictable’ role in facilitating China-U.S. trade and economic dialogue.”
Indeed.
Communist China has high hopes that the Biden administration will return America to the good not-so-old days of thinly veiled appeasement toward it. Such a course of action is incompatible with U.S. security and prosperity. Huawei deserves no quarter.
