“这简直就是在抨击中国！”华为的一位发言人这样评价美国众议院情报委员会于10月8日发布的一篇报道。该委员会去年一整年都在调查中国最大的两家电信公司的商业活动。这篇报道长篇累牍地在说华为和中兴（所涉及的另外一家中国公司）由于自身不透明的管理机制和与中国共产党有密切联系而对美国安全造成莫须有的威胁。但是怪就怪在委员会绝无真凭实据来支撑这一刻薄说辞。
此外，情报委员会的这份报道呼吁负责监管外国购买美国资产的政府机构阻止华为或中兴收购美国公司的任何举措。同时还表示这两家公司的电信网络设备和组件应该和政府机构以及为政府机构效力的私有企业划清界限。此外，该委员会还要深入调查这两家公司从中国政府得到的财政支援。
这些建议一旦被采纳，就会极大阻碍中国公司在世界最大电信市场上扩展，而对于诸如美国思科公司和瑞典爱立信公司这些竞争对手则起了助推作用。正因为这一点，华为才对委员会所得结论给予快速重磅回击，华为认为两国政府间不应该“挟持人质造成地缘政治升温。”
这项报道本身无法举出实例来说明华为和中兴造成了安全风险，尽管包括一个“分类”部分可能涉及华为员工“违反美国法律”。这份报道发布于一次新闻发布会上，暗指华为公司非法获取并传递数据，目的可能是把数据送至中国——这项指控华为坚决否认。这家中国公司同时还警告，如若将其赶出美国市场，将会开启“荒诞扭曲贸易的先河。”
的确会这样。正像报纸所说的那样，下意识的本国技术保护主义在供应链全球化的产业中也没有任何意义。如今，大多数通信设备制造商在中国生产他们的部分甚至全部设备和源组件。所以当务之急是全球共同努力来生成控制全球通讯网络完整性和安全性的标准。可悲的是，美国众议院情报委员会不够明智，没有充分认识到这一点。
“LITTLE more than an exercise in China bashing.” That is how a spokesman for Huawei has described a report published on October 8th by the Intelligence Committee of America’s House of Representatives, which has spent the past year looking into the activities of two of China’s biggest telecoms firms. The report contains plenty of rhetoric about the supposed threats that Huawei and ZTE, the other Chinese company covered in it, pose to American security because of their opaque governance structures and links to China’s Communist Party. But it is oddly devoid of hard evidence to support its draconian recommendations.
Among other things, the committee’s report calls for any attempt by Huawei or ZTE to buy American companies to be blocked by a government body that is responsible for reviewing foreign purchases of American assets. It also says that the two firms’ telecoms-networking equipment and components should be excluded from government systems and those of private firms that work on them. And it wants to see an in-depth investigation into the financial support that the companies receive from the Chinese government.
If some of these recommendations are implemented, they could effectively stymie the Chinese firms’ attempts to expand in the world’s largest telecoms market and give a boost to rivals such as America’s Cisco and Sweden’s Ericsson. That explains why Huawei has been quick to hit back at the committee’s conclusions, arguing that it should not be “held hostage to geopolitical tensions” between governments.
The report itself fails to spell out any specific examples of the security risks that Huawei and ZTE pose, though it contains a “classified” section that supposedly contains instances in which Huawei’s employees “may be violating US laws”. At a press conference to launch the report, dark hints were dropped that the firm had been involved in things such as “beaconing”, or the illicit extraction and transfer of data, presumably with the goal of sending it on to China—a charge that Huawei firmly denies. The Chinese firm also gave warning that shutting it out of the American market would create a “monstrous, trade-distorting precedent”.
Indeed it would. As this newspaper has argued, knee-jerk techno-nationalism also makes no sense in an industry in which supply chains have become global. Most telecoms-equipment manufacturers now manufacture part or all of their kit in China and source components from the country. So what is needed most is an international effort to develop standards governing the integrity and security of telecoms networks. Sadly, the House Intelligence Committee isn’t smart enough to see this.
