Does anybody have a clue what this is really about?
Obviously it's not about the Chinese gov't putting backdoors in Huawei equipment. They put backdoors in everybody's equipment, as does the NSA and, where they can, GCHQ, the GRU, and Mossad. It's surprising any cellphone still works with all the backdoors in the baseband processors, completely invisible to (e.g.) your Android kernel running as a contained guest.
My best guess is that this is about competition with local makers of equipment, which it is much easier to hide NSA backdoors in, and easier to keep Chinese backdoors out of. Or maybe just competition with local makers, in general. The US State Dept has been caught many times with their thumb on the scales on behalf of US exporters, such as taking countries to court to stop anti-smoking campaigns. France was similarly caught spying on behalf of Airbus, vs Boeing sales.
Obviously it's not about the Chinese gov't putting backdoors in Huawei equipment. They put backdoors in everybody's equipment, as does the NSA and, where they can, GCHQ, the GRU, and Mossad. It's surprising any cellphone still works with all the backdoors in the baseband processors, completely invisible to (e.g.) your Android kernel running as a contained guest.
My best guess is that this is about competition with local makers of equipment, which it is much easier to hide NSA backdoors in, and easier to keep Chinese backdoors out of. Or maybe just competition with local makers, in general. The US State Dept has been caught many times with their thumb on the scales on behalf of US exporters, such as taking countries to court to stop anti-smoking campaigns. France was similarly caught spying on behalf of Airbus, vs Boeing sales.