A customer shops for products in a Huawei store in Spain. (Photo via Getty Images)

Scrapping Huawei and Combating China’s Economic Espionage

Around the world, countries are responding to China’s whole-of-government approach to economic espionage. Policymakers in the United Kingdom are set to expunge Huawei [[link removed]] from the country's network after determining that the Chinese tech giant's products are a “severe” security threat. Meanwhile, the Indian government announced a ban [[link removed]] last week on many Chinese apps, including TikTok, whose data mining practices impinge upon the "sovereignty and integrity of India" and all its users.

FBI Director Christopher Wray joined Hudson yesterday [[link removed]] to examine the threat posed by Huawei and other companies that fall under the authority of the Chinese Communist Party:

“Huawei is a serial intellectual property thief, with a pattern and practice of disregarding both the rule of law and the rights of its victims. … If Chinese companies like Huawei are given unfettered access to our telecommunications infrastructure, they could collect any of your information that traverses their devices or networks. Worse still: they’d have no choice but to hand it over to the Chinese government if asked—the privacy and due process protections that are sacrosanct in the United States are simply non-existent in China.”

Sadly, this issue isn’t new, and as countries pursue safer telecom alternatives, Hudson Senior Fellow Thomas Duesterberg has examined how the U.S. can lead in the development of safe technology and global telecom standards. In the Wall Street Journal [[link removed]], he notes how U.S. companies are taking a different approach to developing 5G technology:

"U.S. industry is developing an alternative to hardware-based telecoms itself. Most promising is an emerging technology called network virtualization. The idea is to bypass much of the traditional wired connections, switches and other processing equipment with a virtual network. Almost all functionality is built into software, largely through cloud computing. This avoids the proprietary hardware base that Huawei exploits to maintain control over the components, software and functionality of its networks."

In Forbes [[link removed]], Duesterberg examines how a global push for export control tools can fight Chinese efforts to cheat innovators' patents:

"A related question is the frequent refusal of Chinese firms to honor patents incorporated into standards [[link removed]] , [[link removed]] called standard essential patents. They thus refuse to pay royalties to patent holders. Export control tools could be helpful in pushing back on these practices, which are employed not only by Huawei but other Chinese telecom operators and equipment makers such as Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile. One proposal, filed by Senator Marsha Blackburn, is designed to combat this practice. It would require any telecommunications company selling products in the U.S. market to prove they have a license to use U.S.-patented products or software. Hopefully other allied nations would follow the U.S. lead, since their technology firms face similar challenges with Chinese practices."

For more on how America and its allies can combat China’s efforts to steal innovation, checkout Hudson Senior Fellow Nadia Schadlow on securing the U.S. digital infrastructure in Defense News [[link removed]] and Thomas Duesterberg's recent event [[link removed]] on emerging 5G technologies in the United States, Japan, and Europe that could transform the telecommunications industry. And don't miss Walter Russell Mead's conversation [[link removed]] with Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray on China's whole-of-state economic espionage efforts.

Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

Hudson Highlights

Read: In Newsweek [[link removed]], Adam Mossoff discusses China's rampant IP piracy and argues that weakening U.S. IP protections will blunt America's innovative edge.

Read: In the Washington Times [[link removed]], Nate Sibley explains how money laundering loopholes are benefiting China's shell companies and allowing them to steal American wealth.

Read: Walter Russell Mead discusses in the Wall Street Journal [[link removed]] the delicate calculations Prime Minister Netanyahu must weigh while considering his next move in the West Bank.

Read: Bryan Clark and Timothy Walton write in Defense News [[link removed]] about Japan's need for a comprehensive air and missile defense system after its decision to suspend the Aegis Ashore installations.

Watch: Aparna Pande and Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu discuss shared priorities of the U.S.-India Partnership [[link removed]].

Watch: The Department of Defense’s Director of Defense Research Dr. Mark Lewis joined Rebeccah Heinrichs for a discussion on how the Pentagon is prioritizing defense modernization [[link removed]], from AI to biotechnology.

New Episode of The Realignment

On the latest [[link removed]] episode of the The Realignment, Marshall and Saagar sat down with Michael Shellenberger, president of Environmental Progress, to make the pro-nuclear, anti-Green New Deal case for confronting climate change.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, July 8

9:00 a.m.

Video Event | [[link removed]] Insights From the Pandemic for Net Neutrality and Bridging the Digital Divide [[link removed]]Featuring Harold Furchtgott-Roth and Christopher Yoo

Wednesday, July 8

12:00 p.m.

Video Event | [[link removed]] U.K.-China Clash: A Conversation with Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP [[link removed]]Featuring Ben Judah and Iain Duncan Smith

Thursday, July 9

12:00 p.m.

Video Event | [[link removed]] Dialogues on American Foreign Policy and World Affairs: A Conversation with Former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken [[link removed]]Featuring Walter Russell Mead and Antony Blinken

Friday, July 10

12:00 p.m.

Video Event | [[link removed]] Special Representatives Brian Hook and Elliott Abrams on the Evolving Tehran-Caracas Relationship [[link removed]]Featuring Elliott Abrams, Brian Hook, and Nadia Schadlow Hudson Institute

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