During an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Chinese tech firm Huawei poses "the greatest threat to America's economic and national security." This malicious cliché is intended to build up momentum for Washington's continued suppression of Chinese companies in the name of national security.
In Pompeo's eyes, concerns about America's national security give the American government the privilege to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and to infringe on the privacy of anyone in the world. Through its surveillance program PRISM, Washington is known to have tapped into the private communications of state leaders, including those of its allies, and collected millions of the world's phone records each and every day. The details of the extensive monitoring it carried out, facilitated by its technological monopoly, are quite astounding.
As far as Pompeo is concerned, America's national security hinges on its absolute superiority and hegemony in 5G network technology. But although the United States proposed prioritizing the deployment of 5G networks in its first National Security Strategy, it is Huawei that has taken the lead in 5G technology, securing more than 16,000 patents. Of these, one-fifth are associated with core network technologies, while less than fifteen percent of the world's 5G patents are held by American companies and no American firms are among the frontline mobile network equipment providers.
Unable to compete with American products, figures in Washington including Pompeo resorted to attempts to defame Huawei, and when that didn't work, they turned to embargoes and blockades. During his interview on Wednesday, Pompeo claimed that "no [American] president directs an American private company." But the revelations about the PRISM surveillance program showed that American telecommunications operators, including Verizon and AT&T, provided access to their networks at the demand of the American government.
The accusation that a private company in China is the greatest national security threat to the world's most powerful country is laughable, and American attempts to smear Huawei without any concrete evidence speaks volumes about its real intentions. Britain and New Zealand have made it clear that they aren't buying into Washington's arguments about Huawei, and network operators outside the United States have said that after rigorous testing of Huawei's hardware and software products they found no security loopholes.
Some chip makers in the United States have been working overtime to supply Chinese companies such as Huawei before they're hit with export bans. Companies such as Microsoft and GM are worried that export bans will weaken their competitiveness and the ability of the United States to innovate. And commentators have raised concerns that the bans will isolate the United States and impair its international credibility, thereby damaging America's national interests. Taken together, this suggests that it is Washington itself, and not Huawei, that poses the biggest threat to America's security and prosperity.
Pompeo's fanciful accusations against Huawei won't help America's tech companies, let alone make the United States safer and stronger. Quite the opposite: They will damage the interests of the United States and hinder the world's technological advancement.
