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German government officials are trying to persuade the national government to exclude Chinese network equipment suppliers from assistance with the country’s upcoming 5G network. It would be a new blow to Huawei, among others, which is also not allowed to compete for 5G networks in Australia and the United States.

The German Foreign and Home Affairs Ministers intend to try to push through such a ban. In this way, they prevent the Chinese from potentially spying on their networks. The fear is that the companies will build backdoors into their networks to make espionage easier.

Serious concerns

These are serious concerns. If it were up to me, we’d do exactly what the Australians do, according to one of the sources against Reuters. Some countries have already forbidden Chinese companies to compete for the 5G contracts. Other countries, including the United Kingdom and even the Netherlands, are considering taking these measures.

As a result, the pressure on companies such as ZTE and Huawei is increasing enormously. The companies are invariably accused of being involved in espionage. Some Western governments therefore think that they are undermining their national security by allowing Huawei or ZTE to participate in the roll-out of the 5G networks.

Single resistance

Of course, all companies deny the accusations. The Chinese government also states that nothing is going on and that these are unsubstantiated allegations. In Germany, there seems to be some opposition to the idea of excluding the companies. For example, the Greens believe that there is no legal basis for excluding Chinese companies.

Excluding all investors from a particular country is the wrong approach, according to Katharina Droege. She’s in the Bundestag for the Greens. But we must be able to look at individual cases to ensure that our critical infrastructure is protected. This could lead to the exclusion of Chinese companies from building our 5G infrastructure.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.