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S1: So a couple of weeks ago, something quite extraordinary happened in London, and that was that the United States and a group of half a dozen senior administration officials and I have to call them that because I met some of them and I’m not allowed to say exactly who I met.

S2: That’s Dan Sabbagh. He is the defense and security editor for the British newspaper The Guardian.

S1: And so came to London for a series of meetings, firstly with ministers and an extraordinarily almost minutes later with a group of journalists, including myself.

S2: The group of Americans was there to lobby the British government and then the press to ban the Chinese telecom company wall away from being part of Britain’s new five gene network infrastructure.

S3: So the Americans sent over this last minute delegation and they had all these sort of lurid warnings, one of which was it was nothing short of madness to allow our way into British 5G networks.

S4: Madness, because the U.S. contends that while way is too close to the Chinese government, indeed the Trump administration has moved aggressively to limit Weiwei within the US.

S1: Now, that might be a bit easier in the States, but the problem in Britain is that we’ve been big users of away since 2000. Three companies leading supplier in 3G 4G networks.

S3: And Britain was heading towards allowing why-why into the future 5G as well. Britain’s spy agencies have long been of the view that whatever the risks, there are no walwa. You know, the theoretical risk that the Chinese could engage in backdoor surveillance or get hold of sensitive British data in some way, shape or form through 5G. Whatever the risks are there, British intelligence agencies have long believed that they can be contained.

S5: And so the Americans came up with some new technical information. That delegation claimed to have some new technical information. The dilator, the Brits said S.R., we work that out already, guys. We’d already anticipated kind of threat that the U.S. material demonstrates which facts to interrupt planning. London said curtly, go away.

S4: On Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government said, OK, two away.

S6: Things like we heard a sound of defiance coming from across the pond. The UK government will indeed allow China’s telecom giant way to at least help in building its 5G network. This comes as Washington has repeatedly been urging London to block the company over national security concerns.

S2: But the story doesn’t end there.

S7: This Friday, when Big Ben strikes 11:00 p.m. in London and on it’s midnight in Brussels, it’ll be official.

S2: The U.K. no longer a member state of the European Union, which means Britain has to negotiate new trading relationships and can’t afford to anger either the U.S. or China. Two countries with competing interests, both of whom want to dominate 21st century technology today on the show, have a battle over 5G.

S4: And Britain is part of a new technological cold war between the U.S. and China. I’m Lizzie O’Leary and this is what next TBD show about technology, power and how the future will be determined. Stay with us.

S2: Britain and the U.S. aren’t alone in their hand-wringing about five G. Countries all over the world are struggling with the same decisions how to build this next generation of Internet infrastructure and who can be trusted to build it. The reason we’re talking about 5G at all is that it may fundamentally change the way technology works. The promise of 5G has to do with speed, speed of communication between Internet connected devices like self-driving cars, the speed at which we can download information 5G promises to enable the kind of futuristic technology that simply isn’t possible with our current infrastructure. I asked down why 5G has ignited so much more political debate than its predecessors.

S3: I think that two things have happened. The market has become consolidated and suddenly the number one player is Chinese and that’s just unusual for a high tech space or strategic industry of any kind anywhere in the anywhere in the world. So I think that’s caught people’s notice. And I think the same time, this just a much greater worry and concern about the security of data information and the risks of surveillance. Things that didn’t exist five, 10 years ago. But the thing that’s different about 5G now here everyone argues about the degree of difference. But kind of the one of the reasons 5G is quicker is because intelligence is not held in the centre of the network in the core is, so to speak, as it is in 4G. But the intelligence is distributed to the edge of the network, to the base stations and antennas. To some extent. And so that’s what help make you go faster. So some people, the U.S. will say, well, that means the architecture is inherently more vulnerable.

S2: Do the Americans have a point that the Chinese government could infiltrate their code, could decide? Actually, we do want to use this for intelligence gathering purposes.

S8: There is no question that the Chinese state would have the wherewithal to try and probably succeed, to try to exploit away codes, to obtain vast volumes of surveillance data. Even the simple power, by the way, to turn off a 5G network remotely that can really disable the economy or a country’s response to a crisis situation or anything like that. And it’s a question about whether any state would want to destroy that company’s credibility in its own credibility with what is effectively an avowed or cyberattack that’s discoverable. And I think you’ve got to remember that this is a world where the Kovar is is is strongly favored. So the first rule of espionage is everyone does it. The second rule of espionage is don’t get caught. And I think the idea here would be if a country engaged in a cyberattack in such a way corrupt to the, you know, one of its own companies code in such a way that it would become clear it was being used for surveillance. That would be the end of that company, wouldn’t it?

S2: What exactly will we be contributing to as part of this 5G network?

S9: So the big thing about Huawei is it is probably it started off as a sort of relatively small player in a highly competitive telecoms equipment market.

S3: But over 20 years of serious investment, a long term strategy, cheap loans with the strong support of the Chinese state. Is gone from being a small player to being bet number one. And it’s got the best 5G equipment and it’s got the cheapest. And in particular, it’s really strong in base stations and antennas, all the stuff on the edge of the network, the stuff that your mobile phone connects directly to.

S2: Why did Boris Johnson and his ministers see 5G is so important to Britain now and sort of building the new British economy?

S1: Well, let’s think about it like this. Boris Johnson has just been elected twice over. He was elected as leader. The Conservative Party in the summer became prime minister, although he had no majority of the time. And then he won handsomely a general election on the Get Brexit Done theme in December. Now has a strong majority. But he’s made some other promises, too. And he’s clearly got to deliver in his mind. He’s got to deliver economic growth to show that leaving the European Union and was a really good idea, because that is what Boris Johnson is indelibly associated with. And what are the things he’s talked about his, you know, gigabit broadband and really fast connectivity, et cetera, et cetera. And 5G is clearly a way to deliver that.

S10: There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have technological progress here in the UK, allow consumers, businesses in the UK to have access to fantastic technology, fantastic communications.

S1: And so the economic side of British government have been real keen on 5G. And that’s the argument essentially that has prevailed.

S2: Specifically, the British government has allowed walkway to be part of its network, but with some restrictions. The company has been labeled a high risk vendor and will therefore be excluded from some core operations. They’ll also be limited to a 35 percent market share of the network.

S11: I noticed in in the way that the government ruled this out. Nicky Morgan, the secretary for Digital Culture, Media and Sport, said this is a UK specific solution for UK specific reasons. And it seemed to me that that was very much a phrase that says, look, we hear you Americans, but this is our priority right now.

S9: That’s exactly right. And again, you could. You know, Britain’s gone through, you know, a number of approaches here. So under the previous prime minister between David Cameron and this chancellor, George Osborne, Britain pursued a policy of economic engagement with China.

S12: And we want to see British business, British investment coming into China. But also we welcome very strongly welcome Chinese investment into Britain. Well, one of the most open and welcoming countries anywhere in the world.

S1: The British were astonishingly open to investment here in the UK, more so than an awful lot of other countries. And that’s driven a lot of economic growth for actually 20 plus years. But but but sort of seven or eight years ago, there was a big attempt to woo the Chinese, particularly into these big infrastructure type investments and industrial vestments that Britain itself is terrible at. Because we’re great at trading and terrible building. That’s just what we are. Fast forward a few years. You’ve had one or two elections in the US. We’ve had Brexit. David Cameron, George Osborne for the history books. Donald Trump’s in the White House. You know, you have an administration with a very different geopolitical view of China. And we’re we’re a country leaving the European Union on kind of wondering what our future is. And when you’re in doubt in Britain, the obvious place does it cozy up to the United States. And the United States is saying you need to get tough on China. And so that’s where you might want to go. But the problem is you’re starting from a different place. And the different place is 15 years of Hawaii where investment in our phone networks. And so you can’t just rub the how overnight, even if you really, really want to.

S2: That pressure from the U.S. is especially important right now. Today, Britain officially begins the process of withdrawing from the EU. And as it redefines its relationship with Europe, its relationships with both the U.S. and China become increasingly important.

S11: I want to look at this moment that Britain is in right now and sort of take these two factors separately, trade and intelligence starting with trade. So obviously, the U.K. has moved toward Brexit. Can you explain the transition period that Britain is in right now?

S1: So the transition period is basically like being in the EU. None of the benefits of being in the European Union. So free movement continues. People can come into the UK and get jobs for the rest of it. The only difference is that parliamentarians don’t go to Brussels from London or anywhere else in the in the United Kingdom. So the idea behind that was to buy time so that you could well literally transition out and negotiate a new free trade deal. So it’s kind of like we’ve left in principle and we’ve absolutely you know, Britain has now crossed the line to leave the European Union. Knight No going back.

S11: I think it is Britain jeopardizing a potential new trade agreement with the U.S. by essentially going against American advice on the way deal.

S9: Well, this is really crucial. Are they are they really? And that’s what everyone’s going to be looking for. So what’s been really, really interesting is that the U.S. have not wanted to link the Raba’a away security, rather, they say, to trade. Okay. And that’s really important because it will be well within the White House’s compass to link the security issue to the trade issue. But so far, they haven’t done it. And if they do, that would be a very powerful argument. Right. It would make a really big difference to the way politicians would think here. And it might make a difference the way Downing Street thinks. The reason they’ve done that is I think there’s a commonality of interest between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. They both want a trade deal fairly soon as I understand it, Donald Trump wants a trade deal ahead of the November election cycle. Will we want a trade deal? The U.K. wants to trade deal certainly by the end of this year, again, to be able sort of, you know, declare some kind of victory, show the Brexit is working and there’s a commonality of politics as well. So there is a real desire on both sides not to make things super difficult for each other. I think both administrations recognize there is a goal, greater goal by working together where possible and not falling out, you know, whether whether our differences still some senators have threatened to review how the U.S. shares intelligence with the U.K. because of this.

S2: And one House member introduced a bill to block intelligence sharing with any country that uses Walwa technology in its 5G infrastructure. I’d like to also kind of explore the intelligence part of this a bit.

S11: You know, you’re the defense editor and there are five countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. that share information. There have been some threats from American politicians that.

S2: This step to allow one way might limit that. Do you really see a limitation in intelligence sharing because of this deal?

S8: I think it is the touch. It is a touchstone issue. And I think if the UK spy agencies really thought their intelligence sharing with the U.S. was at risk, we would be concerned. But this is a complex issue and it’s a complex relationship. It’s complex partly because the feeling here is so that the Americans are prepared to make threats about the intelligence relationship. Marco Rubio, a few Republican senators might say we’d want to look at that and re legislate. But if you’re really going to get that kind of bill through Congress, I’m not sure. I think we would say on our side, not very modestly. But I think it’s true that Britain contributes quite a lot, you know, disproportionate share to the intelligence relationship, actually. And I get from British sources that, you know, the the US couldn’t operate on such a kind of precision basis in Syria, in Iraq and around without British intelligence and reconnaissance information. There’s also a simple point, which is the Brits say, you know, you think we use Hawi kit in this area cause we don’t. We have special encryption. We use other we use other specialized equipment. This is like a theoretical risk. So it’s it’s a non risk because you’re imagining that something is happening.

S2: That isn’t the case in the background of all of this. Is this sort of cold technology war between the United States and China? How is the U.S. doing in in this war? It seems like they lost a pretty important battle.

S8: So if you ask her why, how important is the UK to you, they’ll say a lot. And the reason they’ll say a lot is because they think, you know, Britain is the swing state or swing votes in this in this argument because the US has already lost the right. They’re not gonna get any more business in the U.S., but they believe that Britain will take an evidence based, rule governed approach. People look at the facts pragmatically and make a decision. And Britain’s proposal that Huawei should be allowed into 5G networks to some extent gives a green light to the rest of the world. And an AI Weiwei can say, hey, if it’s good enough for Britain, they’ve evaluated it. They’ve all lose pressure from Donald Trump. They’ve resisted it. They said 35 percent. Okay. Then not just Solis’s to every major developed country, every country. Everyone’s got a mobile phone now. Pretty much who always. Okay. And that’s why this argument matters.

S13: So it may go the US, we know the U.S. argument prevailed in Australia. They banned Huawei kit. That was their decision. But I think an awful lot of other governments will take the lead from the Brits. And as far as the Chinese company is concerned, it’s been a good result this week.

S14: Dan Sabbagh, defense and security editor at The Guardian, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. That is it for today. What next? TBD is produced by Ethan Brooks and hosted by me. Lizzie O’Leary. And it’s part of the larger what next family. TBD is also part of Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, Arizona State University and New America. Mary and her team will be back on Monday with the latest on impeachment. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.