China’s 5G dominance could lead to a ‘dangerous’ internet split with the US, Donald Trump’s FCC chief warns
- Beijing may aim to use superfast next-generation tech to build a separate, heavily censored internet, Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai says
- ‘We don’t want the internet to be Balkanised,’ he says at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York
China’s prominence in next-generation 5G wireless technology not only threatens US security but could lead to a “dangerous” US-China internet split, the chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission has said.
“You don’t need to look hard to find evidence that the Chinese government is willing and able to use its growing influence in global commerce to advance its own interest,” Ajit Pai said at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York on Tuesday.
Echoing a growing US concern, he said he worries “that the end result [of China’s technological advances] is essentially to create two different internets”, with a version built by the Chinese government being heavily censored.
“That will be something that’s unfortunate for consumers and something that’s potentially dangerous in the long run,” Pai said. “We don’t want the internet to be Balkanised.”
Pai alluded to the emergence of Chinese tech firms as global forces, in particular citing the rise of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant that has become the world’s largest 5G technology supplier.
The administration of US President Donald Trump contends that Huawei’s products are a national security risk and in May added Huawei to a trade blacklist, enacting restrictions that make it extremely difficult for the company to do business with its US counterparts.