New Delhi, May 6, 2021 – Let me get you the big story from the telecom sector. The government has given the go-ahead for 5G trials, Reliance, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, and MTNL, will go full steam ahead for the trials for the next six months. Now the list of the hardware providers includes Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung. What’s extremely significant at this stage is that both Huawei and ZTE Chinese companies are out of 5G trials.
Indian and Chinese forces remain locked in a hostile confrontation after the Chinese aggression in Ladakh along the line of actual control. India is the second-largest market in the world when it comes to mobile phone users and 5G trials are seen as an attempt to encourage domestic players and only trusted partners.
This indeed is a significant development in China, Huawei, and ZTE, not a part of the 5G trials. This is a continuance of India’s critical infrastructure policy. To give it a name. I call this policy No China 2.0. Let me elaborate. No China 1.0 happened on 29th June 2020, when India banned 59 Chinese apps following Galwan, no China 1.1 happened on second June 2020. When India banned Chinese firms from participating in its highway projects. No China 1.2 happened on 28th July 2020 when it banned another 47 Chinese apps, no China 1.3 on second September, under which India banned another 118 apps.
No China 1.4 happened on 24th November 2020 with the ban of another 43 Apps. Altogether, I break this down into various series. So okay, series one concluded with the Chinese firms being banned from offering apps and from road projects. This now the exclusion of Huawei from India’s 5G trials is the beginning of series two. No China 2.0 happened yesterday on 4th May 2021, with the exclusion of Chinese firms from India’s 5G trials. But this is not the end, there will be a series 3,4,5,6, 7, and more with no China in India’s other critical infrastructure.
The equipment on which 5g communications run is a complex web of components sourced from across the world, including from China. For example, radar sensors are an important component for remote medical diagnosis and surgery for enabling self-driven cars, smart transportation smart industry. Sensors need chip designers, component manufacturers, technology providers, and system integrators. Companies that make them are spread across Germany, Japan, UK, Netherlands, US, Sweden.
The job of radar sensor manufacturers, therefore, involves getting the best components from across the world and assembling them. This could be from China. So how does India or any other country that is attempting to keep its telecom infrastructure safe from Chinese intrusion ensure that there is no Chinese component in its equipment? There are no ready answers yet.
This is a developing area. But democracies can rely on the fact that the final assembly and thus the control and accountability of equipment will be in the hands of a non-Chinese firm and therefore, subjected to democratic scrutiny under an independent judiciary, not to the whims of an authoritarian China. And within it, one man Xi Jinping, who is known as the as you know very well as the chairman of everything.
Now, China has also been saying that border issues should not impact the rest of the relationship. India insists, unless there is peace and tranquility at the border, we cannot move forward. So banning Huawei and ZTE, or not including them in 5g trials. Are we also sending out a very important signal not just to China, but to the rest of the world?
The wars of tomorrow will be fought not so much on the ground or at sea, as they will be in virtual spaces. The third cold war will be a Cold War. Here, citizens, businesses, governments, of all countries that use Chinese equipment will be vulnerable. That’s the reason why Australia banned Chinese firms from its critical infrastructure in August 2019. The US in July 2020, the UK in August 2020, Sweden in October 2020, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Denmark, Latvia, Greece, I could go on.
India, excluding Huawei from its 5g trials is a step in the same direction. And though the decision is independent, the alignment is clearly with the West. But even the rest of the world did not ban Huawei or Chinese firms. India must if there is a collision with China, the other countries are at a reasonable geographic distance to be able to negotiate. With India, there is a 3488-kilometer long border.
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