If media reports are to be believed, the Chinese provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, Huawei has bagged a contract worth Rs 300 crore with one of India’s telecom giants. This has given rise to several questions, the most important being why this Chinese company is being allowed to expand its hold on the Indian market given the animosity between the two countries, including the ongoing stand-off at Ladakh, and given the fact that the Chinese company is in serious trouble in the western world because of questions about the integrity of its systems. But then this news should not come as a surprise. Given the lack of clear guidelines from the government on the purchase of Chinese equipment, it is but natural that telcos will opt for devices from that country given the price factor. The prices that the Chinese can offer cannot be matched by any other vendor, because no other government subsidises manufacturing the way Beijing does. When profit is the sole motive, then questions about the integrity of the devices being purchased can take a back seat, which is sad. No wonder the Cellular Operators Association of India has been lobbying with Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to remove all restrictions on vendors and their equipment for the 5G trials. In other words, allow Huawei to participate in the 5G trials.
Reports suggest that outside of China, Huawei Technologies has been losing ground to non Chinese equipment manufacturers, especially in the West. Huawei is being banned in western countries primarily because of its alleged links with the People’s Liberation Army. There are studies that claim that key technical personnel employed by Huawei have strong backgrounds in and work closely with PLA’s intelligence gathering and military activities. Concerns have been raised that some Huawei employees may be linked even to “hacking or industrial espionage conducted against Western firms”. However, in India, there is a school of thought, which suggests that Huawei should be allowed to roll out 5G because of its cheap rates. This does not take into account the possibility of Chinese equipment leaking like a sieve sensitive information, including defence and security related, to the PLA. In this context, mention must be made of western media reports that Chinese hackers were behind the recent power outages in the country, including in India’s financial capital, Mumbai. There is no reason to believe that this information is a figment of the western media’s imagination. According to government’s own data, in 2018-2019, India imported power equipment worth Rs 71,000 crore. Out of this, Rs 21,000 crore were imports from China. And this is just one year’s figure, which should give us an idea of the extent of penetration that the Chinese have in our power sector. Hence, our power grids are already vulnerable to Chinese malware attacks, which may, in turn, affect our communication systems, our banking grid, and even our defence systems. Apparently, the “minor” outages we witnessed recently were a warning to India not to cross China’s “red line”. We may refuse to see it, but China is already at war with the world—if not a kinetic combat, but an unrestricted warfare, where it uses technology to cripple a country. Australia has been at the receiving end of such attacks, and now India too. In such a scenario, how can a dubious Chinese company be allowed to expand its presence in the country? But for that the government needs to issue clear guidelines stopping companies from using Chinese equipment in critical sectors. This has not happened. The need of the hour is decoupling from China, to ensure supply chain resilience, which effectively means shifting the sourcing of equipment from China to other countries or manufacturing them at home. It will not be an easy task, but will have to be done, for China is a malign power and is determined to stop India’s rise and can go to any extent for that. It’s time we internalised that fact..