The decision by the National Security Council to greenlight Huawei’s limited participation in the construction of Britain’s 5G network is incomprehensibly short-sighted. It is a cyber Trojan horse.

The NSC approval of some sort of half-way measure – which will allow Huawei to participate while limiting it to the periphery away from the “core” of the network – sounds reassuring. However, behind all the techno-babble is the hubristic argument that the UK Government believes that it can contain Huawei-related risks by technical means. Not only is this wrong, it reveals an approach to risk-assessment that is so narrow it is basically useless.

There are two vital questions that the Government needs to ask: What is Huawei’s relationship to the People’s Republic of China? And what are the risks to the UK – economic, security, and political – of including Huawei in its digital infrastructure? As far as we are concerned, from months of research towards a report that will be published next month, these questions have not been adequately answered.

We still lack enough knowledge about 5G to ascertain whether concepts about layered defence will still hold with the new system. There are arguments for and against the Government’s position, but not even the technical community is unified in this understanding. Indeed, the idea of merely allowing Huawei to build the 5G antennae has serious flaws related to the re-purposing of subcircuits.