My way or the Huawei: how US ultimatum over China’s 5G giant fell flat in Southeast Asia
- 5G technology is coming to Southeast Asia, and the odds are Huawei’s technology will be driving it.
- That’s a slap in the face to a US that has been trying to poison the well against its Chinese competitor. So why is no-one listening to Uncle Sam?
When Malaysia’s deputy minister for international trade and industry, Ong Kian Ming, toured a Huawei training centre in Cyberjaya this week, the vibe was more “humdrum public relations opportunity” than it was “visit of epochal significance in a battle of East and West”.
Followed around by an entourage of interns, the minister gamely engaged in all the classic press conference moves: making small talk with trainees, commending the Chinese company for investing in his country and waxing lyrical about the coming 5G internet revolution.
There was ample time for snacks, a chat with Huawei Malaysia CEO Michael Yuan – in Mandarin, naturally – and, of course, the obligatory photo op full of smiling faces and raised thumbs.
Yet half the world away in Washington’s corridors of power, it’s hard to imagine there were anything but grimaces.
Malaysia is just the latest in a string of Southeast Asian nations to have welcomed the world’s largest telecommunications company with open arms, flying in the face of warnings from the United States that doing so will leave their most highly classified secrets vulnerable to Chinese spies.
The region is shaping up as a key battleground in a war between the US and China to influence the roll-out of superfast 5G internet services, billed by experts as an era-defining technological shift that could pave the way for breakthroughs in everything from artificial intelligence to the creation of smart cities.
In the West, the battles are going Washington’s way. Its claims that Huawei is a front for Chinese espionage have prompted every single one of its fellow members in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing community – Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand – to question the wisdom of dealing with the company.