Australia was the first country to ban Huawei from its 5G system in 2018,a decision many more have followed. The government of Chinese President Xi Jinping continues to demand that Canberra reverse the veto. It isnumber two on a list of 14 demands released by the Chinese embassy in Canberra in November as a prerequisite to improving relations. Number one on the list calls for China’s foreign investment to be unrestricted.
A senior Australian spy said the main risk was not Chinese spying but that Beijing could order Huawei to disconnect the Australian 5G network altogether.
“Here’s the thing that most commentators get confused about with 5G,including some of our American friends,” the spy told this correspondent for the new bookRed Zone,extracted in Saturday’sGood Weekend magazine. “It’s not about the interception of telephone calls. We’ve got that problem with 4G,we had it with 3G.”
Loading
The official said the real problem was that Beijing could order Huawei or the other major Chinese telecoms gear maker,ZTE,“to switch things off,and that disrupts the country – elements of it,or the whole country. That’s why you’ve got to be concerned.
“The sewerage pump stops working. Clean water doesn’t come to you. You can imagine the social implications of that. Or the public transport network doesn’t work. Or electric cars that are self-driving don’t work. And that has implications for society,implications for the economy.”
For these reasons,he said,the 5G network would be “No.1 on our critical infrastructure list” in need of protection once it was fully operational.