NZ and Canada decline to jump on the Huawei banned wagon

Despite the current fashion for banning Huawei among US allies, New Zealand and Canada have both indicated they may not play ball.

The Chinese kit vendor has been a pariah in the US for years, but more recently Australia decided to join in the fun and there have been rumours of other countries with close ties to the US following suit. But a couple of reports this week point towards a lack of unanimity on the part of ‘the west’ over this matter.

Reseller News spoke to Kiwi MP Andrew Little, who indicated his government is not convinced Huawei poses a security threat. “New Zealand develops its own, independent security policy based on inputs from a range of sources,” said Little. “As you’d expect with any change in technology of such significance as 5G, officials are considering whether the existing framework will remain fit-for-purpose in the new environment.”

While this appears to leave open the possibility that NZ might yet sanction Huawei, US neighbour Canada seems to be taking a more absolute stance. Earlier this week the Globe and Mail published a story with the following headline: ‘No need to ban Huawei in light of Canada’s robust cybersecurity safeguards, top official says’.

This is the verdict of Scott Jones, the head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, who reckons Canada is perfectly capable of working out for itself whether any technology presents security concerns.

“We have a very advanced relationship with our telecommunications providers, something that is different from most other countries to be honest from what I have seen,” Jones is reported as saying. “We have a program that is very deep in terms of working on increasing that broader resilience piece especially as we are looking at the next-generation telecommunications networks.”

Huawei is understandably keen to see these decisions reported as widely as the Australian one. It seems reasonable to assume that if enough US allies ban it from 5G infrastructure then it will become increasingly difficult for the rest not to follow suit. Europe has kept quiet on the matter and so long as countries like NZ and Canada decline to play ball Huawei might feel it’s on top of the damage limitation