Trump’s banning of Huawei could be the beginning of the biggest trade war ever | John Naughton

Don't expect the Chinese government to roll over in the fight against the tech giant

Until recently, the only thing the average citizen could have told you about Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, was that s/he hadn't the faintest idea of how to pronounce it (it's "hwa-wei" btw, according to Wikipedia). And then, suddenly, this unpronounceable company seemed to be all over the news. Now it's at the centre of a burgeoning geopolitical row. How did that happen?

I blame the Australians, who have a government only marginally less dysfunctional than our own. According to a Reuters report, in early 2018 they asked their top spooks a question: "With all the offensive cyber tools at their disposal, what harm could they inflict if they had access to equipment installed in the 5G network, the next generation mobile communications technology, of a target nation?" The spooks came back with a sombre assessment: the offensive potential of 5G was so great, they reported, that if Australia were on the receiving end of such attacks, the country's critical infrastructure could be seriously sabotaged.