Abstract
5G is a critical sensitive technology that could endanger public safety. Recent progress of Huawei in the number of patents relating to 5G caused a trade war over the issue, with multiple actions from the U.S., including restrictions towards Chinese companies. This paper seeks to explore the issue of 5G around global security and the struggle for geopolitical dominance. Identified gap in the literature is related to the question if there is a safe side in terms of choices that countries make around 5G vendors. Earlier studies have not considered this question appropriately in a comprehensive way, because of one sided look and policy approach. The second question attempts to find the best solution for countries to escape dominance of 5G vendors, ensure high safety and avoid potential hazards. To put 5G technology in context, we present geopolitical issues around a global information infrastructure, provide information into China's 5G strategy and history of tech struggles between China and the United States (U.S.). We further present emerging geopolitical safety issues regarding 5G technology and elaborate Serbia's geopolitical turmoil related to 5G. In conclusion we classify countries based on their position about this issue to the West, the East and the Neutral corpuses. The focus on Serbia and politics of 5G diversity is then examined to conclude that this geopolitical position of 5G Neutrality could be beneficial for the balanced world in which new technologies will be a base for multilateral dominance. This paper is limited in technical and legal analysis of the issue. Further research should propose encryption and quality control standards together with legal framework, to ensure diversity in social interest.
Highlights
The United States (US) diplomatic efforts succeeded in slowing down the advance of Huawei and the Chinese 5G technology spread in the world, so that time is saved for companies in the West developing 5G technologies
New cutting-edge ICT developments will be essential in the future and amongst them, the crucial place is occupied by 5G technology
Previous chapters present global information infrastructure, China’s 5G strategy, history of turmoil between China and the U.S related to the tech sector, geopolitical 5G security threats and a case study on complexity of Serbia’s geopolitical position in terms of 5G
Summary
As stated by Christopher Ashley Ford, in the capacity of the Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of International Security and Non-Proliferation: “[...] products and technologies from Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba, Xiaomi, Lenovo, and other companies have already been used in the research, production, and repair of weapons and equipment for the PLA (Chinese People’s Liberation Army) These companies have provided support services for China’s military industry in areas related to electronics, aerospace, shipbuilding, and weapons − all of which, incidentally, are key military-civil fusion target areas when it comes to foreign technology acquisition − to enhance the core competitiveness of China’s national defense science and technology sectors” (Ford, 2019). Given the fact that Chinese government is criticized as authoritarian, the main threat identified by this author is a concern of state interference with corporations using 5G, potential Huawei’s customers, as it does with domestic companies in mainland China. Describing China as a hostile country, the author concludes that no Chinese company should be left to operate in India
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