The use of Chinese tech in federal government networks as well as those of contractors and federal grant/loan recipients was expressly prohibited under section 889 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Not only were organizations forbidden from purchasing equipment from a list of Chinese vendors, but the act even prohibits even the use of items from Chinese vendors.
Solidarity Among the 5 Eyes
Additionally in 2019, Congress passed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019, which directed the FCC to determine how to best remove and replace Chinese-made equipment in U.S. telecom networks.
The issue of Chinese tech in networks even caused a brief dustup among the Five Eye nations – the national intelligence of the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Great Britain after the latter of the group had opted to go ahead with allowing Chinese-based Huawei to have access to “non-core” parts of the nation’s 5G network. The issue became so great that some U.S. lawmakers even suggested that the U.S. block the sale of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter to the UK.
As a result, last summer the UK announced that it would join with its allies and ban the Chinese tech from its network. By 2027, all of Huawei’s devices would be removed from the 5G network in the UK.
While that gives the UK six years to address the issue, the question is whether that will be enough time. Already the United States, which as noted banned Chinese hardware two years ago, is also struggling to remove it. As BreakingDefense reported this week, one part of the problem is that neither the DoD nor the FCC has even issued lists of what equipment is banned.
So Many Chinese Tech Companies and Products
For organizations, the best course of action is to pull any and all devices that were produced by Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua. Additionally, the NDAA also called for any product from their subsidiaries to also be prohibited despite the fact the Pentagon hasn’t completely named all of those companies, Nick Jones, director of regulatory policy at the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), told BreakingDefense.
Tracking down the hundreds of subsidiaries was described as a “Sisyphean task” by Jones. Further confusing the issue are the essential components of any systems or “critical technology as part of any system.” What that means is that hardware made by a non-Chinese based vendor could still contain components from those banned companies, which still would result in the technology running afoul of the bans.
“There is a whole screed on how many ways something can be made to fail,” warned Jim Purtilo, associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland.
“Chips might have a back door and respond to surprise pokes by software; they might be made to work in ordinary working environments but be statistically likely to fail if used in harsh environments, i.e. military; they might have hidden destruct connections which will make – or break and/or disable – the chip when irradiated in ways specific to combat,” Purtilo told ClearanceJobs. “If we only set ourselves up for looking at data exfil, then we miss cyber physical properties.”
Chinese Tech Ban Necessary?
The concern has been that the Chinese companies could monitor communications and report the findings back to Beijing.
“The basic claim was that Huawei supposedly built backdoors into their networking equipment that would allow the Chinese government access to corporate and government networks,” said technology industry analyst Charles King of Pund-IT.
“So far as I know, those claims were never substantiated and Huawei has repeatedly offered to have its equipment examined or subjected to more stringent quality control tests than it currently undergoes,” King told ClearanceJobs. “In other words, it seems likely that Huawei was simply being targeted in the high stakes trade war between the U.S. and China.”
The ban has caused numerous problems for U.S. businesses.
“First and foremost, companies that already bought/deployed Huawei products are being forced to purchase and install replacement equipment – an expensive proposition, especially for smaller/local telcos and Internet SPs that often chose Huawei because it was cheaper than U.S. made equivalents and easier to install,” King added.
“Second, along with being less expensive, Huawei is also considered to be well ahead of many U.S. and European wireless companies, especially when it comes to 5G products,” King noted. “Deutsche Telecom has said that banning Huawei could add two plus years to its 5G rollout plans, and there are already reports in the U.S. by consumers claiming that the 5G networks that they’re being charged a premium to use are no better than LTE networks.”
However, there are still other factors that have raised concerns when it comes to the ban of Chinese technology.
“There are clearly sensitive and meaningful issues at stake, including China’s serial theft of corporate IP and China’s government reported sponsoring cybercrimes against government and commercial organizations,” suggested King. “Continuing the Huawei ban is also likely to harden attitudes against U.S. companies attempting to business in China. Overall, it’s a complex situation with no easy answers.”
China is also rich in Rare Earth Minerals
Purtilo explained that there is a Confucian angle to all of this, which could be to simply flood a market with products that consumers here demand so that in the long run China still wins. 5G is certainly such an example.
“China has stampeded the sheep to demand 5G,” added Purtilo. “There may be exploits in the protocols, but the strategic hit is this: the number of devices needed to serve an area is huge. The range is shorter, the devices more sophisticated, we are thus going to spike demand for rare earths and battery tech, while increasing our own infrastructure costs in securing access points and so on; which surprise, expose a jugular to China, which controls most of the resources. They are fighting on macroeconomic terms, we are thinking narrowly, and I think are losing too.”
