BEIJING | A “baseless” decision taken under the “pretext” of national security: China on Friday castigated the exclusion from the 5G network in Canada of its telecom giants ZTE and Huawei, the latter group denouncing a “political decision”.
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Beijing-Ottawa relations have notoriously deteriorated since 2018 with the arrest in Canada, at the request of the United States, of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, who has since returned to China.
In a context of Sino-American rivalry, Washington has for its part greatly increased the pressure against the Chinese gems of tech in recent years.
Huawei is accused by the United States of posing a danger to national security due to potential and unproven links with Chinese intelligence services, which the company denies.
Washington urges its allies to give up ZTE and especially Huawei to equip their 5G networks, arguing that Beijing could use these firms to monitor a country’s communications and data traffic.
After years of dithering, Canada decided on Thursday to formally ban the two groups from its 5G network.
“We are announcing our intention to ban Huawei and ZTE products and services in Canada’s telecommunications systems,” said Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne.
“This follows a full review by our security agencies and in consultation with our closest allies,” he told a news conference.
“Disappointed”
Beijing expressed its dissatisfaction on Friday.
“Despite the absence of any conclusive evidence, Canada has excluded these Chinese companies from the Canadian market using as a pretext alleged security risks, which are baseless,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the diplomacy. Chinese.
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“China strongly opposes” this decision, he added to the press, assuring that his country would take “all necessary measures” to defend Chinese companies.
Huawei Canada, for its part, said it was “disappointed” by this “regrettable political decision”, according to a press release sent to AFP.
In 13 years of activity of the group in the country, the company’s equipment has been “closely examined” by the Canadian services and “there have been no security incidents”, underlines the company.
“We will do everything in our power to protect the legitimate rights and interests of our customers, our partners and ourselves.”
Canada already prohibited Huawei from participating in government tenders for basic network equipment, such as routers.
The United States is leading the campaign against Huawei, with the spectacular banishment of the Chinese group by US President Donald Trump in May 2019.
Washington, which no longer has a major telecom equipment manufacturer in mobile networks, has since openly encouraged its European partners to do the same.
Hostage diplomacy
Other Canadian allies have followed suit in the United States, including the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and Sweden.
France, for its part, has chosen to restrict the operating authorizations of operators who use Huawei technologies.
5G technology, whose deployment is accelerating around the world, offers very high-speed Internet access and is set to play a key role for connected objects.
5G “represents a major opportunity for competition and growth” but “also entails risks”, Canadian Minister of Public Security Marco Mendicino said on Thursday.
“There are many hostile actors who are ready to exploit vulnerabilities” in telecommunications networks, he told reporters.
The diplomatic relationship between China and Canada soured at the end of 2018 with the arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive and daughter of the founder of the Chinese telecom group.
This marked the start of a major crisis between the two countries called “hostage diplomacy”, with the parallel detention in China of two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor.
After nearly three years of proceedings, Meng Wanzhou was finally released at the end of September 2021 and returned to China. The two Canadians were later released.