Huawei, and the Chinese industry in general is at the forefront of 5G coming soon, and the West is mad that China can be more advanced than them and scared that all the equipment we use for deploying 5G is from them and, consequently, full of (not backdoors) spying capabilities.

As someone whose country isn't part of five eyes, the hypocrisy makes me quietly laugh.

(Edit: updated for less gratuitous accusations)

The issue is not back doors in my opinion. It's more that the US is expecting 5G to be big (really big) and they don't want to world relying on China for their infrastructure. It's bad for (America's) national security and it gives China too much clout.

Sadly the five eyes couldn’t proof a single backdoor in Huawei products while the history of backdoors in US hardware is quite well documented.

If the five eyes hadn’t shown time and time again, that they don’t give a damn about the laws and rights of other democratic nations, and quite definitly use “security” as a token for industrial spionage, I might show more support.

But please show more than some fiction in which Huwawei has backdoors nobody managed to proof just yet.

Yeah they could. But do they?

The issue isn’t current back doors as you are trying to shift the conversation towards, it is about future Chinese government ordered back doors. I mean you’d have to be in a special dumb category to insert back doors today with all the coverage

If you are outside the Five Eyes, you are left with the choice between US products (with a documented history of spying also on democratic nations) and Chinese products, which potentially in the future could also be host for government backdoors.

This means the choice is only about who gets your trade secrets, with a bit more favour for huawei because they didn’t do it yet.

It is so easy from an US perspective to say “Take our product, we are the good ones” and conviniently ignoring that people tasked with building a infrastructure that isn’t beeing spied on have a hard time choosing here.

This would be easier if US products were actually trustworthy and there wasn’t a history of ignoring the rights of allied nations and court ordered backdoors. Why would I care if the backdoor was ordered by the chinese government or the US government? Both proofed they don’t really care about the rights of foreign citizen and both have aspirations to become or stay an empire.

The US damaged itself with it’s undemocratic spying practices and the final bill for it is not there yet. That beeing said I’d love to pay a bit more for a good product I can trust, but the US is not the place for such a product.

Aren't there European competitors for some/most of the stack like Nokia, Ericsson, as well Japanese?

Yes.. in fact none of the companies providing 5g infrastructure are American.

That is a very good point, except the US will not steal you IP and give it to Microsoft or some wind energy company. 2nd you can always take the US government to court, you can always take a US company to court and you will get a hearing without corruption without government directives

Your first point is somewhat valid for a company (although national spying capabilities have been used to favor national industries) but as a citizen I'm more concerned about the blatant disrespect for people's privacy, especially if you're not American.

The second point is irrelevant if you're not American. Also, can you name a company that endured severe, tangible repercussions for their spying?

If they had proof would they disclose it.

That would be worth a lot for cyberdefence also of their own soil. Sadly the US cyberoperations never thought much about defence.

As opposed to the world relying on, say, American equipment, because that would be better for all the countries' national security?

I definitely understand the argument but the hypocrisy is just too loud to put aside.

ESPECIALLY in Five Eyes locales.

What a ridiculous comment

Huawei made the Nexus 8P and has been in the news pretty regularly over the past few years. There has been a lot of recent media coverage because of this issue. You have been hearing more about them because there has been more newsworthy events, but they have been in the news for a while.

Maybe you mean Nexus 6P?

I think they've been bigger in Europe. I have a 3g dongle I got in 2013 in Ireland that's from Huawei. Every single "mobile broadband modem" that the providers here give you is from Huawei, annoyingly.