The deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Jens Spahn, has called on the German government to review Germany's dependence on China on an annual basis. "In the future, we need a China check for all areas: The traffic light should submit an annual report on dependencies on China and what consequences it draws from it," said the CDU politician of the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" and the "Stuttgarter Nachrichten". With a view to the role of Chinese manufacturers in the expansion of the 5G network, Spahn said: "We must become more independent of China and telecommunications is critical infrastructure."
As can be seen from a letter from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to the network operators that became known on Tuesday, it considers an impairment of public order and security in Germany by components from Huawei and ZTE possible. Therefore, all critical – i.e. safety-relevant – parts that are already installed in the network should be tested. Until now, this inspection obligation only applied to critical parts that are newly installed.
Components refer to antenna modules and control elements. To which exactly the new inspection obligation relates, is still unclear. In the industry, the view is that it cannot be about antennas, since they only pass data and the impairment of some antennas is not really critical for an entire mobile phone network. This is different with servers in the so-called core network. However, these do not play a role in the current Huawei debate, since, for example, Vodafone has not installed any components from this manufacturer in this network area. Deutsche Telekom decided in 2019 to remove Chinese equipment suppliers from the core network.
US and Canada have already ruled out Huawei and ZTE technology
The US has long warned Germany against Huawei's involvement in the mobile network. Several countries, including the US and Canada, have already excluded Huawei and ZTE network technology from their markets. The US is of the opinion that China could use the 5G technology of Huawei, for example, to spy on it. The company has always denied the allegations.
With the security check, the German government wants to rule out China gaining access to German mobile phone networks and exploiting this, for example for espionage. With the expansion of the scope of the test, the Federal Ministry of the Interior now probably also wants to take into account the antenna network, in which the three German mobile phone network operators Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and O2 have installed, among other things, Huawei components.