Gone are the days when the world particularly the United States used to look down upon the Russian and Chinese internets. But that has all changed with Huawei becoming the springboard of Chinese technology. Established in 1985, Huawei started as a private technological startup by Ren Zhengfei, a veteran of the People’s Liberation Army’s engineering corps, rose to become one of the predominant players in the telecommunications industry by grabbing a 29 percent market share in the industry.
Huawei’s growing dominance
More importantly, Huawei has by most accounts taken the lead in the technological race to develop one of the modern world‘s most important technologies-fifth generation mobile telephones or 5G. More so, it is has also surpassed Apple to become the second-largest smartphone maker.
Perhaps for the first, in China’s modern history, Huawei’s growing market share and technological prowess are putting the Chinese government in a position to dominate the next-generation technology. 5G technology time will support next-gen digital applications and will permit ultra-fast, low latency and high thoroughput communications that will be important for consumers. Further, 5G will also be the technology that ensures artificial intelligence function seamlessly, that driverless cars will not crash among others.
In short, 5G will become the nervous centre of the 21st century economy and if Huawei continues its rise, then it is Beijing, not Washington, which will be poised to call the shots in the market.As a result, Huawei’s startling ability to gatecrash what has until now been considered an exclusive bastion of the developed worldhas sent ripples across the western front.
Why is it controversial?
However, the rise of Huawei has been mewith much consternation who has asserted that the company poses a national security threat. Moreover, the US, without any fruitful evidence has claimed that allowing the company to be involved in the build-out of the 5G networks raises unmanageable security risks because of the nature of the technology and the nature of the relationship between the Communist Chinese Party and the technology companies. Also, given the fact that there will be huge amounts of data on 5G networks both, in the core and periphery, this might result in creating vulnerabilities not present on 3G or 4G networks. In this, Washington has been pressing allies to keep Huawei out of mobile networks, warning that Beijing could use the sensitive data infrastructure for spying.
Tasks cut out for India
In India, Huawei is one of the prime contenders for sourcing technology for 5G infrastructure. While India has not absolutely refrained from inducting Huawei, has a potential market, but indeed, there are security concerns. This has been explicitly stated by telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who stated that it is not merely a matter of technology, where Huawei’s participation in 5 G is concerned, rather it also involves a “security” angle to it.
Given that suspicions Huawei’s hardware cannot be dismissed, but it would do India good to realign their strategic alignment and engage with countries objectively. In this regard, it would be best to let Indian service providers to use their own technical expertise to assess such espionage risks. For an optimum policy , where both national security and economic prosperity are intertwined, India would do good to adopt a measure that will not only preserve its immediate interest, but will also enhance its technological capabilities.
India Outbound
June 17, 2019
source https://indiaoutbound.org/china-is-spearheading-the-next-gen-technology-and-india-would-do-best-not-to-miss-it/
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