Sky Views: Huawei's 5G network could be used for spying - while the West is asleep at the wheel

Sky Views: Huawei's 5G network could be used for spying - while the West is asleep at the wheel

By Tom Cheshire, Asia correspondent

In 1911, the British Imperial Defence Committee declared that the 'All Red Line' was complete.

The line was a network of telegraph stations and undersea cables, strung across the globe, all under British control.

When World War I broke out, it proved a crucial advantage.

First, the British Navy was able to cut Germany's own telegraph cables.


And then, by controlling telegraph traffic worldwide, it could intercept messages being carried on its network.

The most famous example of this was the Zimmerman telegram - a communique sent by Germany to Mexico discussing a potential alliance if the US were to enter the war.

British spies picked it up, decoded it, then leaked it to the Americans.

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The All Red Line wasn't created by the British state acting alone.

It relied on private telecoms companies - notably, the Eastern Telegraph Company, founded by a Scottish entrepreneur, which created and ran much of the network.

When the British government asked Eastern Telegraph to install "censors" - people who would look through telegrams - they obliged.

Private ships helped British forces cut and relay submarine cables throughout the war.

Image: The All Red Line was a network of telegraph stations and underground cables under British control

And, with overland telegram routes out of action, Eastern Telegraph made a lot of money in the process.

The Eastern Telegraph group was never conceived as a Trojan horse for the British state - it was a private company that was often alarmed by government competition in the form of public enterprise.

But it ended up providing a back door when required.

So when the furore over Huawei started, it shouldn't have come as a surprise - we've had a century's warning.

The technology has changed but the scenario is just the same. Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, wants to build its own 'All Red Line' of the future - the infrastructure for 5G.

The problem is the 'red' bit. In this case, not the pinky-red of the British Empire as represented on maps, but the bold red of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Image: Some warn the phone company's plans for a 5G network could be used for spying

The fear is that the CCP will do exactly what the Brits did and use their technological dominance for espionage.

Here the West was asleep at the wheel. 5G has been an inevitability since 1G.

But when it came to setting the standards for 5G - its very architecture - Western companies and governments let Huawei push ahead.

5G was the first generation for which a Chinese company proposed technical solutions that were adopted into the very basis of the technology.

And not only that, Huawei has contributed comfortably more than any other company, with Swedish company Ericsson second.

The US eventually woke up to Huawei's influence and has launched a furious campaign against it.

It's been lobbying governments around the world to drop Huawei as a supplier - or face the consequences.

Is that a fair concern? Despite the US campaign, no real evidence of eavesdropping by Huawei has been supplied.

Nor have we had any proof of Huawei building back doors into equipment for later use.

Ultimately, though, that's by the by.

The Eastern Telegraph Company didn't plan on spying for the British government but, in unique circumstances, found itself doing so.

Image: Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei says his firm does not spy for China

In China, things are much closer between business and the state.

As Richard McGregor details in The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, a 'red phone' sits on the desk of the CEOs of state-owned enterprises.

On the other end of the line is the Communist leadership.

A senior executive at a state bank told McGregor: "When the red machine rings, you had better make sure you answer it."

Even for private companies, it is impossible to thrive without the blessing of the state.

Ren Zhengfei, the former People's Liberation Army engineer who founded Huawei, has said his firm does not spy for China, and that he would not help China spy on someone even if required by Chinese law.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe him.

But it may also be a promise he is unable to keep, even if he wants to. The state comes before everything.

Whatever might transpire, it's too late for any real remedy.

Huawei's 5G offering is streets ahead of anyone else's. Either countries install it, or set back their 5G development by years.

All of this was entirely predictable - and preventable.

Western companies - urged on by their governments - should have taken a bigger role in the development of 5G.

Security should have been considered from the get-go - as the UK tried to do with Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, established relatively far-sightedly in 2010.

"Huawei's 5G offering is streets ahead of anyone else's. Either countries install it, or set back their 5G development by years."

Even that, though, has struggled.

Its 2019 report, published in March, said: "Further significant technical issues have been identified in Huawei's engineering processes, leading to new risks in the UK telecommunications networks."

But the USA's campaign against Huawei - a private company, even if its ownership structure is hard to understand - seems destined to be both vindictive and ineffective.

Its sound and fury obscures a simple fact: this is a mess made by Western complacency.

The vociferousness of the campaign also obscures Western guilt.

Here, there's a nice rhyme with history.

Over the years, the Eastern Telegraph Company morphed into Cable & Wireless.

In 2014, Edward Snowden revealed that the company was helping GCHQ, as part of its 'Mastering the Internet' project.

Cable and Wireless (bought by Vodafone in 2012) provided users' internet traffic to the British state.

And it did this in the same way as back at the start of the 20th century, by tapping into the submarine cables that land at Cornwall.

The tricks we devised in the Edwardian era are still very much in use.

No wonder we're worried China might do the same.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Beth Rigby - The Farage phenomenon could put Johnson into No 10