The German lawmakers recently passed a tougher 5G security legislation which can be seen as a potential threat to Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
The IT Security Law 2.0 which was approved by the Bundestag eventually restricts the role of “untrustworthy” supplier of 5G equipment and also requires the telecom operators to notify the government, in case they sign a contract for critical 5G equipment.
More importantly, the new law gives the government the power to block any 5G Technology/Equipment Supplier.
This can only mean one thing that Berlin is aligning its policies following other US allies.
This particular development of blocking certain firms (especially tech giants like Huawei) from participation in the 5G rollout was not welcomed by China.
The move to block tech firms from participation in the 5G rollout should not be politically motivated and instead, the decision should be purely based on security assessment by telecommunication security experts.
The Chinese ambassador to Germany said in a statement:
If Germany were to take a decision that leads to Huawei’s exclusion from the German market, there will be consequences, The Chinese government will not stand idly by.
In another statement Ambassador Wu said that Huawei has no legal obligation to provide data to the Chinese government and also said in a video on the newspaper’s website:
Could we say one day that these German cars are no longer safe because we’re in a position to manufacture our own cars?” “No. That is pure protectionism.
In the past year, 258-billion-dollar worth of goods was traded between China and Germany which surpass the Netherlands and the US for the 5th consecutive year. The statistics from the Federal Office of Germany show that despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic the trade turnover between the two countries increased by 3 percent from 2019. All these statistics indicate the importance of having good relationships between the two countries.
The move to ban Huawei from providing 5G Technology to Berlin can hurt the excellent trading relations between Beijing and Berlin badly as China is Germany’s largest trading partner with 200 billion bilateral trade per year.
Furthermore, China is the biggest market for major German auto manufacturing companies like Volkswagen, Daimler, and BMW.
It’s time for Berlin to decide whether they want to blindly align their policies like other major US allies and sabotage their trading relationship with China or they are going to allow Huawei to do business with Germany’s telecom operators and save the 200-billion-dollar bilateral trade.
