US Deputy Secretary of State Keith Krach December 23 said, that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine made a decision to dismantle all Huawei equipment installed in departmental buildings. This example is likely to be followed by several other governmental institutions. Krach also reminded that Ukraine refused to cooperate with Huawei in the project of creating a "smart city", giving advantage to the American company Cisco.
It is interesting that this fact was reported not by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine itself, but by a representative of the second state. In our country, many came to the conclusion that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs acted in this way exclusively at the request of the United States.
ElitExpert found out why America is harshly opposed to the Chinese company Huawei and what it threatens Ukraine with.
USA vs Huawei
Relations between the United States and Huawei became strained at the beginning of the 2003s, when in 2004 and 2012, requests for theft of technologies by Huawei representatives were recorded in Texas. The question of the danger of Huawei's presence in the US was raised in the Senate back in XNUMX, as the Chinese company continued to be suspected of industrial espionage and the collection of intelligence data.
The situation worsened under President Donald Trump, when in December 2018, at the request of the United States, Meng Wangzhou, the financial director and vice chairman of the board of Huawei, was detained in Vancouver, Canada. He was accused of violating trade sanctions against Iran. In May 2019, Trump blacklisted Huawei to protect the country's communications networks. On May 20, 2020, Google stopped cooperating with the company, which meant its disconnection from the Android system. In the future, the sanctions were only prolonged and expanded.
In addition, most likely under the pressure of the USA, America's allies also began to refuse Huawei services: first of all, European countries, although some of them, in particular the Baltic countries, had previously successfully developed relations with China.
Business, special services and global firewall
This year, the United States prepared the "Clean Network" initiative, which is aimed at eliminating "the long-term threat to privacy, security, human rights, and principled cooperation posed to the free world by authoritarian attackers."
Participation in the "clean network" assumes that all network traffic from autonomous 5G networks entering or existing in US diplomatic centers will pass only through equipment provided by trusted suppliers - most likely US suppliers and companies affiliated with them. That is, to put it briefly, the USA is trying to dislodge China from the world market of digital technologies in favor of its own companies, because Huawei also installed its equipment in various countries for 5G service.
However, in addition to protecting business, the USA can pursue other goals - to create a kind of global firewall against the aforementioned "authoritarian intruders". In other words, protection against cyberattacks from the same China and other countries unfriendly to America. As part of this program, Trump signed two executive orders on threats emanating from Chinese social networks TikTok and WeChat, which, according to the US government, collect user data and transfer it to the Chinese government.
Most likely, the last statement is true. The same Huawei could certainly cooperate with the Chinese special services. However, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter can be accused of working for the US special services. The fact that Google is totally spying on users through browsers and smartphones was also reported by the American mass media. In September, Facebook was sued for tracking users through the front camera. In addition, the social network collects personal data — ostensibly to use it for market research — and tracks almost all user manipulations.
That is, it gives the impression that only American companies can be spied on, but Chinese companies cannot be spied on.
Illogical Ukraine
Ukraine's actions are somewhat contrary to common sense. After all, China is one of the main economic and business partners of our country. For example, in 11 months of 2020, the export of Ukrainian goods to China grew by 92,22% (to 6,33 billion dollars - compared to 3,6 billion dollars in 2019) while imports decreased by 11,68% (to 7,39 billion). That is, by rejecting Huawei, Ukraine replaces a strategically important partner, and this is not the first time. Earlier in the agreement with the USA, Ukraine violated agreements with Chinese investors regarding the Motor Sych enterprise. Because of this, our country is facing an international court, due to which Ukraine may lose 3,5 billion dollars.
Obviously, with the presidency of Joe Biden, the policy regarding China will not change. All the more so because in NATO, the Celestial Empire was named one of the main opponents of the Alliance for the next decade. Nothing changes in Ukraine either - if the USA demands something, our government does it. However, how long Beijing will tolerate Kiev's antics is a big and very important question for us. After all, the loss of such an important partner will deal a big blow to the fragile economy of our country.
