Agreed: Huawei Has No Place in Canada's 5G Upgrade
"In the last year, Canadians have been very aware that their country and their citizens have been on the receiving end of what is an increasingly fraught diplomatic crisis with China."
"What has been different in the last year is the very tangible impact of China's actions as a result of the Meng [CEO, Huawei] arrest."
Shachi Kurl, executive director, Angus Reid Institute
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| An Angus Reid online poll published Wednesday says 69 per cent of respondents were against the federal government allowing Huawei from being involved in Canada's 5G wireless networks. (David Ramos/Getty Images) |
"[The] triangular relationship between party, state and business is too interlocked for there to be any real independence [on the part of Chinese companies from China's government administration]."Not that there could be much doubt in the collective Canadian opinion, given the events of the last year and subsequent news coverage beginning with the arrest a year ago in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou and the subsequent retaliatory arrest of two Canadian men on trumped-up charges of espionage and a spanner thrown on the export of Canadian agricultural products to China, while China aggressively demands the release of Meng, wanted on a U.S. extradition warrant. Insults have been flying thick from Beijing to Ottawa.
Scott McKnight, China expert, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Toronto
"He [Xi Jinping] wants the world to revert to the kind of arrangement or the kind of mentality that prevailed in Asia back when China was the dominant power in centuries past, where everybody else was essentially a tributary to China."
Brian Lee Crowley, managing director, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Ottawa
Beijing's infiltration in Canadian academic institutions, government agencies and politics at various levels and its overbearing intrusions in Canadian affairs have been widely highlighted which has inevitably resulted in Canadian public opinion being less than generous to China. This, from a country that insists it will brook no outside interference in its internal business. The Canadian-Chinese community is divided in its loyalty to Beijing and on the opposite side, resistance to the Chinese Communist Party.
There has been pressure from China in the form of both blandishments from Huawei and threats from Beijing over Canada's indecision over giving Huawei Industries a contract to become involved in modernizing and setting up the country's 5G Internet infrastructure. The most recent poll taken by the Angus Reid Institute found that 69 percent of responders feel Ottawa should reject the bid by Huawei to be involved in the construction Canada's next-generation infrastructure.
While their inclusion would help to increase speed and capacity of mobile networking in Canada, it would also result in Huawei, closely aligned with Beijing, in helping to build the network along with Canadian partner Telus Mobility, given the opportunity to engage in cyberespionage when there is no secret that this is the goal of the Chinese administration. China has called upon all its businesses and corporations to effectively act as an arm of the government.
Poll respondents expressed fully negative views toward China generally; 66 percent hosting an "unfavourable" position compared with 51 percent in 2018, while 22 percent of respondents support efforts to increase trade ties with China, a decrease from 40 percent holding that view in 2015. Up to the last year and to the present time, the Liberal-led government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fully intended to succeed in signing a free trade agreement between Canada and China.
Some Canadians have urged Prime Minister Trudeau to engage with China in the same way China has with Canada. According to Sachi Kurl, Canadians have shouldered a more wary attitude toward China in response to its huge economic global stretch and its obvious human rights abuses; suspicions that have only intensified in the last year, in lock-step with Beijing's hostile attitude toward Canada and its efforts to 'discipline' Canada for its 'error' in arresting Ms. Meng.
Mr. McKnight at the Munk School of Global Affairs stresses that China has recently demanded of all its government institutions that the use of foreign=made computers and software be discontinued within three years, an obvious response to foreign powers who have taken to challenging Huawei's global expansion ambitions. Western allies have been warned by the United States that the Chinese tech giant should be banned from building their 5G networks for all-too-obvious security purposes.
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, December 12, 2019
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