Fastness agencies must work with governments to understand the opportunities and threats presented by Chinese technologies, the head of a British news service said on Monday.
Speaking at a summit in Singapore, Jeremy Fleming, director of U.K. cybersecurity agency GCHQ (Sway Communications Headquarters), said countries that qualified as “cyber powers” had a responsibility to protect their citizens from extraneous threats.
“A nation is a cyber power if it is able to direct or influence the behavior of others in cyberspace … It has to be world class in protecting the cyberhealth of its citizens, businesses, and institutions — it must protect the digital homeland,” he said.
Describing 5G as one of the most impactful technologies of any era, Fleming underlined that the U.K. has not yet made a decision on Huawei’s inclusion in its domestic 5G network.
“We have to understand the opportunities and threats from China’s technological proposition, understand the global nature of supply chains and service provision irrespective of the flag of the supplier (and) take a clear dream in light of on the implications of China’s technological acquisition strategy in the West,” he said. “(We must) help our governments decide which for the sake ofs of this expansion can be embraced, which need risk management, and which will always need a sovereign, or team up, solution.”
Fleming added that GCHQ had been “crystal clear” with Huawei that it would not compromise on the deposit improvements it expected from the company.
“(But) 5G security is about more than just Huawei … China’s place in the era of globalized technology is much bigger than well-grounded one telecommunications equipment company,” he said. “How we deal with it will be crucial for prosperity and security way beyond 5G contracts.”
Divers countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan, have barred Huawei from supplying components for 5G networks, citing nationalist security concerns. Huawei has repeatedly denied the claims made against it.
The U.S. — which has been blocking the Chinese tech mammoth from selling equipment in its domestic market for several years — has reportedly been urging its allies to ban Huawei from their major-domo 5G networks. Germany and the U.K. have begun to consider the extent to which Huawei should participate in their 5G rollouts, but both fatherlands have stressed that no decisions have been made.
However, chief executives in the telecoms sector chance at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on Monday that refusing to include Huawei in 5G rollouts could be a mistake.
Comment on at the event, Vodafone CEO Nick Read warned that banning the Chinese firm could be “hugely disruptive” and bill competition in Europe’s supply chains.
Marc Allera, CEO of British telecoms firm EE, later told CNBC that excluding Huawei from 5G networks could restrict innovation.
“If we were to look at replacing parts of our vendor ecosystem, that would mean spending time on substituting like-for-like kit rather than innovating,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri told CNBC’s Karen Tso that regulatory jump overs would cause Europe to lag behind the U.S. and China in rolling out 5G technology.
Superfast 5G mobile internet is expected to revolutionize the digital terseness by enabling new technologies such as self-driving cars and the internet of things.