Huawei, Big Brother and Technological Self-Destruction

02/17/2019

5G is just the latest innovation giving powerful forces more ability to monitor and control our lives.

Some of Canada's strategic allies, including Australia, the United States and New Zealand, have banned China's high-tech firm Huawei Technologies from supplying 5G technology for reasons of national security.

The threat is real. But that's only part of a crazy Black Mirror-like story of the introduction of a technology that threatens to make the world a more fragile and authoritarian place than it has already become.

The U.S. made its decision to shun Huawei in part based on a 2012 report by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee that found neither Huawei nor ZTE, another Chinese tech giant, were "willing to provide sufficient evidence to ameliorate the Committee's concerns" about their ties to the Communist Party of China (CCP).

Australia and New Zealand followed suit last year after political scandals over Chinese interference in their national affairs.

Typically, Canada has yet to make a decision and is reviewing the matter.