Countering Huawei Requires Help From U.S. Allies, Warner Says
Countering Huawei Requires Help From U.S. Allies, Warner Says
(Bloomberg) -- Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized President Donald Trump Monday for not enlisting allies to counter China, including the threat posed by Huawei’s technology.
Speaking at the U.S. Institute for Peace in Washington, Warner said the U.S. may need to create an “industrial policy” with top allies to ensure a powerful, global competitor to Huawei Technologies Co. on 5G technology so countries aren’t stuck using a company that he said has no true independence from the Chinese Communist Party.
While Warner gave Trump credit for realizing China is a problem -- and said he wished President Barack Obama had done more -- the Virginia Democrat said Trump has “gotten it all wrong” by going it alone in his trade war with the communist country. Warner also said he worries that Trump sees Huawei as a trade issue instead of a long-term national security threat.
China’s President Xi Jinping “is a making a play for dominance” in key fields like artificial intelligence, telecommunications and robotics, said Warner of Virginia, describing it as part of China’s imperialist policies.
The problem, Warner said, isn’t with Huawei’s existing hardware or software, but with the potential for it to be updated with surveillance technology that could be exploited by the Chinese government.
They “can tell Huawei, the next update you send, put malware in,” Warner said. “We don’t have recourse.”
He said much of China’s efforts globally are simply “good old fashioned 20th century imperialism in a new suit” but without values of freedom and democracy at its core.
Even as Warner criticized the Trump administration on Huawei and a lack of support for protesters in Hong Kong, he said some of his Republican colleagues, like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, have been “stalwart” on the issue and agree with most of his criticisms of China.
Warner also suggested diverting much of the U.S. defense budget to 21st century technologies, including cyber capabilities, instead of 20th century military hardware. He said Russia, China, Iran and others will continue try to interfere in the politics of the U.S. and its allies.
“It’s effective and it’s extraordinarily cheap,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Laurie Asséo
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