华为那些趣事

中国政府在华为问题上的立场是模棱两可，这多少反映了它在中美对立的争斗中缺乏自信，不敢直接把华为作为底线与美国摊牌。好几个月前我就说华为是中国的核心利益，而且是这次谈判中中国必须维护的唯一目标，不过国内各种势力厉害，确实不是像我这般山野刁民瞎折腾的。

 

华为自己最近大肆反击，在公关上做的很积极，似乎有成效，中国政府也跟着起哄，说“捍卫华为利益”。可是美加两国的媒体说的都是华为嚷嚷得凶，正是因为美加两国是个自由、法制的国家，华为才有机会公开为自己辩护，而在中国那是万万不可能的事（《南华早报》Surprise, surprise, Vancouver: Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou is a mansion-owning, satellite-parenting reverse immigran）。

 

这话，确实有道理，不觉得华为或中国政府能狡辩过去。不过，反过来，如果不是美加两国违反自己的市场规则，违法压制华为，又哪来这一场戏？

 

华为在美国加拿大打官司，并不是为了指望打赢，而是造势，是为了赢得美国以外的市场。

 

中国政府的政策让华为陷于被动地位，而华为的愚昧也是被别人抓住尾巴的原因，中国政府和华为都是在摸着石头过河（参见： 也许华为......），不知道好的对策（顺便给美国律师行痛宰一笔），最终，美国的手段太暴露，难以完场，让大家都不好意思。《纽约时报》：

 

In Barcelona, I met in a hotel lobby with a frustrated executive from one of Europe?s biggest carriers who said the United States had presented no new details to support its accusations.

Instead, American officials have tried to gain support by rehashing China’s history of cyber misbehavior and President Xi Jinping’s increasing control over the Chinese economy.

 

Vodafone?s chief executive, Nick Read, defended Huawei at a news conference, repeating a not-so-subtle swipe at the United States that criticism of Huawei wasn’t “fact based.”

 

（《彭博》德国安全部门意在禁止华为）

 

美国最终的理由是国家安全，这很难不接受，一旦涉及安全，好像就没啥规矩可依了。不过不依规矩是坏了自家的规矩，如果说服力不足，大家还是嘀咕。

 

澳大利亚则在追随美国最坚定的，华为是禁定了，但澳大利亚的指导思想是鱼蝇情结，安全上靠美国，经济上靠中国，也许他们吃肉吃多了，不觉得是个矛盾。俗话说，脚踏两条船，两边通吃，最后两边一块儿揍你。媒体不好开口的，《纽约时报》的大牌资深国安记者David Sanger就直接说了：“压制华为就是为了不允许中国占据5G阵地，没别的。”

 

华为意想不到的盟友是英国。英国是美国最坚定，有历史渊源的同族哥们儿。又是五鹰眼分子，说理不应当放过华为。不过，大家记得英国是第一个在亚投行红线踹了美国一脚的吗？英国自然会站在美国一边，不过英国人见世面bi美国人是多多了，什么时候得为自己着想，他们清楚。

 

《纽约时报》As Huawei’s Influence in Canada Grows, Some Fear Spying. Others Just Want Fast Internet

 

 

【附录】 《金融时报》揭露英国各情报部门对华为事件的微妙立场

Huawei threat uncovers enemy within UK spy agencies

Debate about approach to the Chinese telecoms group reveals tensions over security roles

 

MI6’s headquarters in London and Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ © FT montage

 

David Bond in London February 28, 2019

 

It is unusual to see, let alone hear, from Britain’s spymasters in public. But in the past few weeks the UK’s intelligence chiefs have been uncharacteristically outspoken on the threat posed to national security by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms equipment maker.

 

In speeches and other public appearances, the heads of MI6, the foreign secret service; GCHQ, the government’s communications intelligence hub, and the National Cyber Security Centre have attempted to bring some clarity to the raging debate about Chinese technology, described by Robert Hannigan, a former GCHQ chief, as a “growing hysteria”.

 

However, while their carefully crafted remarks suggest the UK’s intelligence agencies are slowly forming a settled view on how to deal with Huawei, behind the scenes the spying organisations’ views diverge.

 

“The intelligence agencies are all agreed that there is a threat,” said one former senior UK intelligence official. “Where I think there is understandable divergence is on the way the threat can be managed and mitigated.”

 

Their views matter because they are each feeding security advice into a government review of the UK’s telecoms infrastructure, which is due to report in the next few weeks. With the US and other members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, such as Australia and New Zealand, adopting a much tougher line on Huawei, the report will also be of international significance.

 

For now, British intelligence seems to be prepared to take a more measured approach. In a speech in Singapore on Monday, Jeremy Fleming, the GCHQ director, said that the UK had to “understand the opportunities and threats” from Chinese technology but a supplier’s country of origin should not lead to automatic bans.

 

Drawing on remarks made by Ciaran Martin, the NCSC chief executive, in Brussels a few days earlier, Mr Fleming said all equipment manufacturers would have to meet tougher cyber security standards if they were to play a part in future fifth generation mobile phone networks.

 

“The NCSC, as part of GCHQ, is the national technical authority for cyber security,” Mr Fleming said, pointedly. “It’s our job to bring objective, evidence-based and technically authoritative advice to the policy table.”

 

But, while GCHQ and its cyber experts at the NCSC believe they have the technological knowhow to manage any threat to critical future 5G telecoms networks, MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, and military chiefs argue for a more cautious approach when it comes to Huawei. Andrew Parker, the director-general of MI5, is the one spy chief who has so far not given a public view on the Chinese company.

 

MI6, meanwhile, has been giving mixed messages. In a discussion at St Andrews university in Scotland before Christmas, Alex Younger, the chief of the UK’s foreign intelligence service, appeared to present a different view from GCHQ.

 

“We need to decide the extent to which we are going to be comfortable with Chinese ownership of these technologies and these platforms in an environment where some of our allies have taken a quite definite position,” he said, referring to Washington’s far tougher stance on Huawei. The US wants allies to bar or block the Chinese company amid concerns over espionage and intellectual property theft.

 

Since then, Mr Younger has fallen more in line with the GCHQ and NCSC position, telling journalists at the Munich security conference last month that country of origin was not as important as quality when it came to cyber safeguards.

 

“From the technical side the NCSC might well be right,” said one government official, “but given China’s long-term plans in this area, it doesn’t look good when you consider what some of our closest allies are saying. Even if there is 1 per cent risk, is it a risk worth taking?”

 

One explanation for the different views comes from the very different tasks the UK’s intelligence services perform and the way technology is upending those roles.

 

One of MI5’s most important functions is to counter spying conducted by hostile foreign states in Britain. Another is to protect the UK’s critical infrastructure, including telecoms networks, power stations and the financial sector, from terrorist attack or disruption.

 

Over the past decade GCHQ has evolved from the leading secret listening post, which traditionally gathered communications intelligence, into the British state’s leading actor in cyber space, contributing to a notable shift in the way government intelligence agencies operate and the balance of power between them.

 

This has inevitably led to a blurring of the lines — with the traditional human intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, having to rapidly adapt to the way hostile states and terrorists conduct espionage and disruption campaigns.

 

“GCHQ has at its beating heart this group of very technical people,” said Anthony Glees, of the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies. “MI5 has had a number of attempts at developing cyber capabilities but they can’t compete with what GCHQ has.”

 

Others view the great game playing out over Huawei as a more straightforward matter of geopolitics.

 

“China has embarked on a major exercise to reshape the planet in accordance with its own interests,” said Nigel Inkster, a former director of MI6 and a senior adviser at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a security think-tank.

 

For the UK’s spymasters weighing technological risk with geopolitical strategy, perhaps the bigger question is whether banning Huawei from 5G would actually make any difference to China’s ability to spy in the UK and cause disruption.

 

“China has managed to conduct effective cyber espionage operations against the UK for a long time without having to rely on Huawei equipment to do it,” said Mr Inkster, adding, ominously: “A 5G network will require a constant stream of software updates and the scope for infected code. The line that Huawei is just a telecommunications company has worn beyond thin.”