Trump Blockade of Huawei Fizzles In European 5G Rollout (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Last summer, the Trump administration started a campaign to convince its European allies to bar China's Huawei from their telecom networks. Bolstered by the success of similar efforts in Australia and New Zealand, the White House sent envoys to European capitals with warnings that Huawei's gear would open a backdoor for Chinese spies. The U.S. even threatened to cut off intelligence sharing if Europe ignored its advice. So far, not a single European country has banned Huawei. Europe, caught in the middle of the U.S.-China trade war, has sought to balance concerns about growing Chinese influence with a desire to increase business with the region's second-biggest trading partner. With no ban in the works, Huawei is in the running for contracts to build 5G phone networks, the ultra-fast wireless technology Europe's leaders hope will fuel the growth of a data-based economy.

The U.K.'s spy chief has indicated that a ban on Huawei is unlikely, citing a lack of viable alternatives to upgrade British telecom networks. Italy's government has dismissed the U.S. warnings as it seeks to boost trade with China. In Germany, authorities have proposed tighter security rules for data networks rather than outlawing Huawei. France is doing the same after initially flirting with the idea of restrictions on Huawei. Governments listened to phone companies such as Vodafone Group Plc, Deutsche Telekom AG, and Orange SA, who warned that sidelining Huawei would delay the implementation of 5G by years and add billions of euros in cost. While carriers can also buy equipment from the likes of Ericsson AB, Nokia Oyj, and Samsung Electronics Co., industry consultants say Huawei's quality is high, and the company last year filed 5,405 global patents, more than double the filings by Ericsson and Nokia combined. And some European lawmakers have been wary of Cisco Systems Inc., Huawei's American rival, since Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing the National Security Agency's use of U.S.-made telecom equipment for spying.

Comments

Re:Stop apologizing.

[gweihir]

Basically everybody does that. There are countless examples of the US doing that as well. It does not matter. "Trade secrets" are valid only for a few years, even if empires in the downward cycle (like the US) often try to artificially change that. Fact is that after a few years, the competition can do it as well and better. Or do you really think Huawei would sell enterprise products they do not understand and hence cannot support? Think again. Copying the designs is not actually a sign that they cannot do it themselves (even though non-engineers and bad engineers often take it for one), it is just a sign that the original design was pretty much finished and that another, independent design process would have arrived pretty much at the same end-point. So why not make it a standard ans make it the same end-product, so customers can directly replace one with the other without having to analyze the differences in detail? And at that time, it is not a trade secret, it is the state-of-the-art. Mass-produced things, like screws, connectors, etc. are standardized at that point and enter the public domain. It is the only sane thing to do.

The utterly hilarious thing is that the US, that "heaven of capitalism" suddenly becomes protectionist and opposed to a free market when they are not the ones doing it to others, but somebody does it to them. Talk about double-standards and ignoring reality.

blame it on anybody, everybody else

[l3v1]

So, given the state of US cellular networks and coverage and their old, sick, narcolepic turtle pace in expanding, maybe they'd be quite happy to see the rest of the world get delayed in 5G deployments - maybe then US networks wouldn't look that bad and and the other hand they could blame their slow pace and lacking coverage on the Chinese, oh my:)

Re: "even threatened to cut off intelligence shari

[Cipheron]

Yeah, not quite. Power is always relative, not absolute. Money is the ultimate power, and USA GDP is currently 24% of world GDP. That sounds like a lot, however GW Bush inherited a USA with over 30% of world GDP. USA isn't growing as fast as the rest of the world, and this is making the USA much less relevant on the world stage. We've really moved on from a bi-polar world to a tri-polar world: USA, Europe and China are the three big players. And when it goes from 2 to 3 players it's much easier to exclude any one player from any one game, such as how USA failed to stop Europe from working with China in this case. The fact is, EU+China can do their own deals now and ignore America. That's why going from 35+% of world GDP down to under 25% of world GDP is in fact a game-changer for the USA. People are more free to ignore you.

Re:"even threatened to cut off intelligence sharin

[AmiMoJo]

He's used to people kissing is ass because he's rich. He's used to being above normal laws and paying to make problems go away, because he's rich.

Doesn't work in international politics though. Not least because at the pace economies and negotiations move the rest of the world can just wait for 2020. Realistically he's got a year left to do anything and there are some big problems headed his way during that time.