Vanguard Magazine

www.vanguardcanada.com JUNE/JULY 2020 45 Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed the Equation? tHe lASt wORD By huGh l. stephens P rior to the intrusion of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canada's health, economic and policy agenda beginning in February of this year, the issue of whether Huawei would be blocked from participation in the rollout of Cana- da's 5G networks was a fraught and pend- ing one. It still is, but the pandemic and the fallout from it on Canada's relations with China now need to be taken into ac- count. The battle lines as to whether and to what extent Canada would allow Huawei to par- ticipate in supplying and building the next generation high-speed telecom network have been clear for some time. They pit a good portion of the security establishment, particularly agencies like the Canadian Se- curity Intelligence Service (CSIS) that de- pend on close co-operation with U.S. intel- ligence agencies, against economic interests represented by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and the major telecommunication companies, notably Bell and Telus. The U.S. has taken an increasingly hard- line position on Huawei as the U.S.-China trade and technology war has heated up. For the U.S., Huawei is a Chinese Trojan horse that would allow China to spy on and disrupt U.S. telecommunications networks. There is also the inconvenient fact that the U.S. does not have a horse in the 5G race (Huawei's main competitors are Sam- sung, Ericsson from Sweden and Finland's Nokia), yet it doesn't want to give China a technological leg up. The U.S. has heavily pressured its Five Eyes intelligence-sharing allies (U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to ban the use of Huawei equip- ment in their 5G networks. Australia has complied and New Zealand has blocked Huawei on an interim but not necessar- ily permanent basis. Like Canada and the U.K., New Zealand has Huawei compo- nents in its 4G system. In January of this year, the U.K. took the decision to allow Huawei limited participation. The British compromise was that British telecom pro- viders could use Huawei equipment in up to 35 per cent of their networks, as long as it was restricted to non-core components (i.e., those not deemed sensitive for secu- rity) and was not deployed near defence or nuclear generation sites. At the time, I noted that the U.K. deci- sion would appear to give Canada some cover if it wished to reach a similar deci- sion that balanced security and indus- trial policy concerns. Canada's electronic monitoring agency, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), is reported as believing that any risk from Huawei can be effectively monitored and controlled. Huawei has extensive R&D operations in Canada, having invested in many of Nortel's 5G patents when that Canadian champion went under. Not directly related but complicating cANADA, HuAweI, AND 5g matters nonetheless is the case of Meng Wanzhou, the senior Huawei executive detained in Vancouver on a U.S. arrest warrant in December of 2018. Her trial is ongoing while she waits out her bail in Vancouver. Given the complication of this case, and its link to the detention in China of two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, for alleged national security offences, it is not surprising that the Trudeau government has kicked the Huawei 5G can down the road. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic that originated in China adds a further layer of complication. Although China acted decisively in late January to impose movement controls and social distancing measures on Wuhan and Hubei province, the epicentre of the pandemic, it has come under heavy criti- cism for not taking earlier action and for local suppression of information about the extent and nature of the virus. The U.S. in particular has played the blame game when it has come to China's role in the epidemic, although it is happy to source supplies from China to equip health-care workers in fighting it. Nonetheless, COV- ID-19 has become one more major bilat- eral irritant between the U.S. and China. In the U.K., there was speculation that Britain's struggle with the coronavirus would also impact U.K.-China relations, leading to a re-evaluation of the decision to allow Huawei a role in Britain's 5G

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