Today, readers are responding to an exclusive Globe interview with Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic vice-chair of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, in which he urges Canada to set aside any ill feelings toward President Donald Trump and join the United States in blacklisting China’s Huawei Technologies from next-generation wireless networks.
Senator Mark Warner, seen here on Capitol Hill, told The Globe and Mail in an exclusive interview that he’s concerned Western governments are not paying sufficient heed to Washington’s warnings on Huawei.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
We should not need to be encouraged. Canada should be [banning Huawei] anyway. Our lack of response to China sickens me. This country needs leadership.
Good allies have each other's backs. The U.S., under Trump, has not been a good ally. Canada must make the decision based on facts. Not a political ploy foisted on us, like Meng.
This should be a no brainer. There is no room here for nuanced debate. Even the suggestion that we should at least consider risking or trading off personal privacy, surveillance by predatory political and economic interests, and freedom of expression without fear of retaliation for some kind of potential economic benefits is extremely naive. Having lived in several East and South East Asian communist countries over much of the past 25 years, I can write with full confidence that the State (the Party) owns and/or controls everything of significance within their borders, either directly or indirectly. Huawei is definitely significant. Just say no.
What you're suggesting is we stand up to the bully in the East and submit to the one to the South. When you talk about "predatory political and economic interests", you're describing the U.S. perfectly.
I think we are better off having multiple vendors involved. That way our telecom networks will not be tied to a single vendor. Sure, huawei might have risks. Limit their gear to a small segment on non-sensitive areas of the network. Where we need to be really careful is with smartphones. Every smart hacker knows that the best and easiest way to break into a network is at the endpoints. That is where the encryption packing and unpacking gets done. You will expend less effort into capturing data unencrypted at the endpoint than trying to crack an encrypted stream of data.
[Senator Mark Warner is] another one on the pay list of U.S. manufacturers who cannot hope to achieve the progress that Huawei has within the next decades.
On this decision, we should stick with our allies before we engage with communism. When has China ever done anything for Canada?
The Chinese government and Huawei cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of Canadians, as shown by recent Chinese tantrum diplomacy. Canada needs to ban Huawei 5G equipment as soon as possible. It is clearly not worth the risk to allow potential Chinese espionage infestation of critical communications infrastructure.
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