Dhe deputy chairman of the Union faction in the Bundestag, Jens Spahn, has called on the federal government to review Germany’s dependence on China every year. “In the future we need a China check for all areas: The traffic light should submit an annual report on dependencies on China and what consequences it draws from it,” said the CDU politician of the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten”. With a view to the role of Chinese manufacturers in the expansion of the 5G network, Spahn said: “We have to become more independent of China and telecommunications is a critical infrastructure.”
As can be seen from a letter from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to the network operators, which became known on Tuesday, it considers that components from Huawei and ZTE may affect public order and security in Germany. Therefore, all critical – i.e. safety-relevant – parts that are already installed in the network should be subjected to an inspection. So far, this obligation to check only referred to critical parts that were newly installed.
Components mean antenna modules and control elements. It is still unclear to what exactly the new test obligation relates. The position taken in the industry is that it cannot be about antennas, since these only pass data through and the impairment of some antennas is not really critical for an entire cell phone network. This is different for servers in the so-called core network. However, these play no role in the current Huawei debate, since Vodafone, for example, has not installed any components from this manufacturer in this network area. In 2019, Deutsche Telekom decided to remove Chinese suppliers from the core network.
The US and Canada have already ruled out Huawei and ZTE technology
The United States has long warned Germany against Huawei’s participation in the mobile network. Several countries, including the United States and Canada, have already excluded Huawei and ZTE network technology from their markets. The US is of the opinion that China could use 5G technology, for example from Huawei, to conduct espionage. The company has always denied the allegations.
With the security check, the federal government wants to prevent China from gaining access to German mobile phone networks and exploiting this, for example for espionage. With the expansion of the scope of the test, the Federal Ministry of the Interior probably also wants to take a look at the antenna network, in which the three German cell phone network operators Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and O2 have installed Huawei components, among other things.
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