Switzerland isn’t afraid of Huawei yet

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Huawei is Beijing’s spy! This is the belief of the USA. The government banned the Chinese telecom giant from the country years ago. Since then, the Americans have been pressing their Western partners to do the same. Canada followed in the spring of 2022. But Europe has shown so far that it is determined and that its economic interests take precedence over information protection.

The German federal government plans to restrict the use of Chinese technology in the country’s mobile phone networks, as “Handelsblatt” reported this week, citing government circles. This means: Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica have to remove installed Huawei components that are part of critical infrastructure from their systems.

It will be quite a lot: about 60 percent of the components installed on the German network come from the Chinese company. Companies will have to cover billions of costs themselves.

Switzerland trusts Huawei

In Switzerland, too, Huawei plays an important role as a supplier in the expansion of 5G networks. The Chinese provider is a leader in 5G technology. That’s why both Sunrise and Salt and Swisscom use components from Huawei. Telecom providers confirm this to Blick.

“Sunrise shares the previous assessment by federal officials that Huawei cannot be excluded from building its 5G infrastructure, mainly because the issue is part of the trade war between the United States and China,” a spokesperson said. “The Swiss Telecommunications Act obliges telecom providers to secure their networks. Of course, Sunrise complies with all legal regulations.»

News service about Huawei

In fact, the Federal Intelligence Service (NDB) evaluates the situation differently from the United States. It is said that the Americans never presented evidence for their espionage allegations, according to Bern. In its annual status reports, the FIS has regularly addressed the rivalry between the US and China for years, citing a “growing gap” between the liberal West and authoritarian state capitalism. And he states: “In the future, Switzerland may have to limit itself to one of these standard areas.”

When asked by Blick, FIS spokesperson Sonja Margelist said, “The exact time horizon for this potential scenario is difficult to predict, so the FIS does not provide more precise information.” The federal intelligence service also does not want to comment on any danger posed by Huawei. That’s all: the evaluations of the FIS would be included in the reports to the Federal Council.

Federal government cannot ban Huawei

But at the moment the Federal Council has little to report. Unlike Germany, the federal government has no legal authority to influence the purchase of equipment by network operators. This means that if a private company like Sunrise wants to use Huawei’s 5G components, the federal government cannot ban it in principle.

Political efforts to change this, as the SP did a year ago, have so far failed.

Source :Blick