Amid calls to boycott Chinese products, demand to ban Chinese telecom companies working against India’s interest in PoK, Gilgit-Baltistan

NEW DELHI: China’s Huawei, a world chief in offering gear for fifth-generation (5G) cell expertise is making an attempt to enter the Indian market however, on the similar time, there’s a rising demand for a ban on Chinese corporations like Huawei and ZTE. 

Amid border stress with China, India has not too long ago banned 59 cell functions, largely Chinese, together with high social media platforms reminiscent of TikTok and WeChat.

The authorities justified the ban by saying that ”these cell functions have been engaged in actions, prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the safety of public order.”

Several Chinese firms, together with Huawei, are related to the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) challenge in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan, which is towards the nationwide curiosity of India. 

There has been a requirement in India that Chinese firms working with Pakistan in PoK shouldn’t be allowed to work in India. Ever for the reason that Galwan Valley conflict, the demand to ban Chinese items within the nation has risen. India is now planning to bar China’s telecommunication firms from supplying 4G gear and is more than likely to bar them from increasing their 5G community within the nation.

“In mild of China’s proclivity for state interference in company operations and the essential infrastructure Huawei offers in, the agency poses a safety menace for international locations with its presence. This menace will get amplified for India when seen within the context of China’s anti-India stance on a variety of points, a Chinese regulation that binds companies to gather and share intelligence, and the three,488-km-long risky India–China border,’’ stated Gautam Chikermane, Vice President of Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in his paper 
‘’5G Infrastructure, Huawei’s Techno-Economic benefits and India’s National Security Concerns: An Analysis.’’

In a current improvement in Pakistan, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication of Pakistan was knowledgeable by a consultant of Special Communications Organisation (SCO) that the organisation was required to supply telecom companies in areas of Jammu and Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B). 

The SCO is a part of the Pakistan Army and Huawei is working with it within the Gilgit-Baltistan area to execute the CPEC challenge. According to the Pakistan media, the primary part had been executed by Huawei and the identical firm could be used for the second part. Under Phase-2 of the challenge, fiber optic cables might be laid on the routes of the CPEC.

The Pak-China Optical Fiber Cable (Pak-China OFC), which connects Pakistan with China by way of Khunjerab go and runs from Rawalpindi in Pakistan. 466.5 kilometers (km) of the cable passes by way of Gilgit-Baltistan, 287.66 km is within the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 47.56 km is within the province of Punjab, and 18.204 km is in Islamabad.

This challenge is owned by the Special Communication Organization (SCO) and Huawei is the contractor for the engineering, procurement, and building of this challenge, which is supposed to supply direct entry to Pakistan and China.

Pakistan’s Minister of Information Technology and Telecom, Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui spoke to the journalists after the signing ceremony stated, “If we want to digitalize our country, we need human resources, so I want to create a Regulatory authority for the IT education and increasing the penetration of broadband and smartphones, and we are planning to invite Huawei to take part in this. Pakistan is working to connect rural areas with fiber and wireless solutions to make networks ready for 4.5G and 5G, the roadmap to digital transformation requires collaboration between all parties, including vendors like Huawei and service providers, everybody can contribute.” 

In order to scale back the dependency on undersea cable methods and for the institution of an alternate excessive capability cable community, Pakistan has initiated an extension of OFC from Rawalpindi to Gwadar and a brand new submarine cable touchdown station at Gwadar which is able to improve the safety of Pakistan’s connectivity to China.

According to Indian safety companies, the Chinese telecom firms reminiscent of Huawei are laying safe cable traces in Pakistan’s naval bases in Karachi and Gwadar Naval and likewise offering excessive tech applied sciences to its defence forces.

Not solely in India, however questions are additionally being raised on China’s telecom firms all around the world. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stated that the US is “certainly looking” at banning Chinese social media apps, together with TikTok, days after India blocked the favored video-sharing platform.

He additionally stated that the opposite Chinese firms are additionally harmful for American safety. “We are taking this very seriously and we are certainly looking at it. We have worked on this very issue for a long time, whether it’s the problem of having Huawei technology in your infrastructure — we’ve gone all over the world and we are making real progress getting that out — we had declared ZTE a danger to American national security,” Mike Pompeo stated.

In his comment on the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology and international ambitions, the National Security Advisor of the US, Robert C O’Brien highlighted China’s true intentions to the world.

“When the Chinese Communist Party can not purchase your information, it steals it. In 2014, the CCP hacked Anthem insurance coverage, amassing delicate data on 80 million Americans. In 2015, the CCP hacked the Office of Personnel Management, which holds safety clearance data, buying delicate information on 20 million Americans who work for the federal authorities. In 2017, it hacked Equifax, acquiring the names, birthdates, social safety numbers, and credit score scores of 145 million Americans” Robert C O’Brien stated on June 24, 2020, in Phoenix, Arizona.

In India, the Ladakh standoff has stirred anti-China sentiments, with commerce our bodies like CAIT calling for a boycott of Chinese merchandise in protest towards the Galwan incident.