A few years ago, the debate about possible dangers posed by Chinese components in the local 5G network occupied German domestic politics intensively. The Merkel-Scholz government, however, did not want to be driven by Washington or admonishing members of the Bundestag to a ban.
The fear of further delaying Germany's digitization through a Huawei ban and at the same time irritating its trading partner China outweighed the fear of installing its gateways for espionage or sabotage into the communist regime itself.
There is no smoking gun
A lot has happened since then. The pandemic has shown Europe what can happen when systemically important areas depend on foreign suppliers. The Ukraine war deepened this lesson and destroyed the illusion that shaped the view of autocratic regimes. Moreover, it is no longer the EU despiser Donald Trump, but the transatlantic Joe Biden who is forging a front against China in the White House.
Berlin would have liked to pull itself out of the affair with a real "test". But no IT-TÜV will find a smoking gun. Even the US has so far probably no proof that Huawei has actually collected information about citizens with its products installed in the West and passed it on to the Chinese state; let alone for the fact that Beijing could interfere with or manipulate Western networks via Huawei remote control.
But there are plenty of reasons for mistrust. Xi Jinping's China wants to leave the West behind. His country's intelligence laws invalidate all claims by Huawei and ZTE that they are purely private companies. Both companies avoided creating trust through transparency.
The result of the "examination" that the Federal Ministry of the Interior has now announced to the German telecommunications companies should therefore be clear. National security dictates that Germany does not network with Chinese technology.