How Australia came to ban Huawei

Australian cybersecurity experts spent eight months trying to find a way to secure Huawei equipment but concluded they could not prevent it being shut down on Beijing’s orders, according to revelations in a new book.

The book, Red Zone, reports that after war-gaming a Huawei 5G deployment hackers from intelligence agency Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) estimated it would need around 300 security measures.

Yet even that could not guarantee network safety and they advised that the risk could not be contained, according to the book by Sydney Morning Herald journalist Peter Hartcher.

Australia’s formal ban on Huawei of 2018 was the first by any country and still rankles with Beijing, which has placed it high on its list of 14 grievances against Australia.

Underlying the specific problems around the risks were two larger factors.

First was China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires all Chinese companies and citizens to comply with security agencies on intelligence matters.

At one level this hardly matters. There is little chance any Chinese person or company would reject a request for assistance on security matters.

But critics point out the law really codifies the government view that intelligence-gathering is an obligation of every Chinese citizen, like paying taxes. It is not just a legal requirement, it is expected of them.

The second part is around the anticipated role of 5G as an enabler of massive IoT.

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