Abstract
From 2019 to 2020, the UK government was confronted with the issue of whether to allow Huawei to participate in the construction of its 5G network. The UK Government’s decision-making was characterised by U-turn and indecision. Based on a theoretical framework of expertise-based (de)politicisation, this article examines the discursive interactions between the UK Government and Parliament using Hansard debates related to Huawei. This article finds that for Huawei, a politicised technical issue in the British politics–expertise nexus, both Parliament and the government utilised expertise politically. Parliamentarians cited “pre-existing” expertise and “external” expertise to both politicise and geo-politicise Huawei 5G and demanded a ban, whereas the government cited “in-house” expertise to depoliticise and de-geo-politicise its decisions on Huawei 5G to both its domestic and foreign audiences. Therefore, for a controversial issue with both domestic and international implications, we show how expertise can be used to mediate both (de)politicisation and (de)geo-politicisation dynamics.
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Data Availability
Data supporting this study are openly available from Hansard at https://hansard.parliament.uk/.
Notes
The phrase “golden era” means closer economic ties between China and the UK and was employed prominently by former British prime minister David Cameron in 2015 (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2015).
From 2018 to 2020, the US and China were in a series of trade disputes including the sanctions of the US on Huawei, presenting a dilemma for other countries to use Huawei or not in their 5G infrastructure. Wong (2022) calls them “swing states”.
Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
According to Wong (2022, pp. 67–68), realist interdependence suggested that countries depend on each other because the international trade flows reinforce each other’s sovereignty to the extent that they will respect another’s monopolisation of the powers within its territorial boundaries.
This article defines “expertise” in the general sense as the “specialised knowledge” and uses it interchangeably with “expert knowledge”. Therefore, expertise can be professional, academic or scientific knowledge in a certain domain and can be used as evidence in policy debates.
This article draws on the substantiating function of expert knowledge, as it focuses on how the UK policy-makers substantiate their policy preferences instead of legitimating the decision-making organisations themselves.
According to Gheyle (2019, pp. 230–231), the institutional setting for politicisation mainly comprises parliamentary arenas, where professional politicians engage in political debate about different issues, and in this process, MPs express their views on certain issues, exercise scrutiny or follow-ups of certain issues and have debates.
According to Beyers et al. (2015, p. 4), “the more time MPs dedicate to a topic, the greater its salience can be expected to be”.
For example, for this utterance by MP Tom Tugendhat (Tugendhat, 1 May 2019, Col. 205):
This decision is frankly extraordinary, given the advice of the National Security Agency in the United States and the Australian Signals Directorate. Could the Prime Minister explain why she feels that ignoring two of our closest intelligence allies and putting in danger a 70-year intelligence-sharing relationship that has underpinned the security of the UK is worth it for Chinese commercial gain?
The overall attitude of this utterance is anti-Huawei, and according to the code book, it is based on the two concerns: security (the intelligence sharing with allies) and geopolitics (the policy consistency with allies).
Matrix coding queries enable us to see coding intersections between two lists of items.
For the above utterance by MP Tom Tugendhat, for example, he refers to “the advice of the national security agency in the United States and the Australian Signals Directorate”, so this utterance will be coded as “expertise” (External Expertise).
Frames are employed by actors to define a given policy problem, make value judgments on that policy, and assign causal interpretations (Entman 1991).
For example, see: Baker, 12 Sep. 2012, Col. 281; Cameron, 12 Sep. 2012, Col. 281; Osborne, 11 Sep. 2012, Col. 121; Swire, 30 Oct. 2012, Col. 161; Horwood, 19 Nov. 2013, Col. 298WH; Wheatcroft, 7 Nov. 2013, Col. 359.
For example, see: Paterson, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 542; Tugendhat, 1 May 2019, Col. 205; Paddick, 25 Apr. 2019, Col. 713; May, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 715; Pittenweem, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 1343.
For example, see: Jones, 27 Jan. 2020, Co. 541; Seely, 25 July 2019, Col. 1452; Tugendhat, 1 May 2019, Col. 205; Cummins, 20 Jan. 2020, Col. 1031; Collins, 4 Mar. 2020, Col. 277WH.
The role of the ‘access’ network is to manage the user’s local access into the network and route their data traffic towards the ‘core’. The ‘core’ acts as a hub both for all the data traffic, and all the user metadata needed to give a user service (NCSC 2020a, p. 21).
For example, see: Tebbit, 25 Apr. 2019, Col. 713; Seely, 30 Jan. 2020, Col. 1020; Smith, 4 Mar. 2020, Col. 276WH; Brown, 22 July 2019, Col. 1141; Thomas-Symonds, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 713.
For example, see: Brabin, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 536; Watson, 22 Jul. 2019, Col. 1138; Raab, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 714; Wright, 22 Jul. 2019, Col. 1143; Morgan, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 1339.
For example, see: Ricketts, 21 May 2019, Col. 1931; Blut, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 538; Davis, 4 Mar. 2020, Guildford, 4 Mar, 2020, Col. 1347; Hendrick, 28 Jan. 2020, Cols. 722–723.
In the US, Huawei has been barred from bidding on government contracts since 2014. (Larson 2018); in August 2018, Australia banned Huawei ZTE from its 5G mobile network (Slezak and Bogle, 2018). New Zealand government denied a November 2018 request from Spark, one of New Zealand’s large domestic carriers, to use Huawei 5G equipment (Spark 2018).
For example, see: Tugendhat, 27 Jan. 2020, col. 535; Lopez, 7 May 2019, Col. 255WH; Platt, 24 Apr. 2019, Col. 729; Green, 5 Feb. 2020, Col. 311; Seely, 30 Jan. 2020, Col. 1021.
For example, see: Lewis, 8 May 2019, Col. 555; Seely, 30 Jan. 2020, Col. 1021; Sobel, 4 Mar. 2020, Cols. 281WH-283WH; Lidington, 2 May 2019, Col. 365; Lewis, 22 Jul. 2019, Cols. 1143–1144.
The National Intelligence Law of China is passed on 27 June 2017 and amended on 27 April 2018. The original texts of Article 7 concerning the parliamentarians are “all organisations and citizens should support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work in accordance with the law, and keep the secrets of national intelligence work that they know. The state protects individuals and organisations that support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work.”(“任何组织和公民都应当依法支持、协助和配合国家情报工作, 保守所知悉的国家情报工作秘密。国家对支持、协助和配合国家情报工作的个人和组织给予保护。”) (NPC 2018).
For example, see: Ellwood, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 541; Seely, 29 Oct. 2019, Col. 256; Onwurah, 10 Mar. 2020, Cols. 172–173; Mangnall, 10 Mar. 2020, Col. 181; Fox, 10 Mar. 2020, Cols. 185–186.
From 2019 to 2020, the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement took place in Hong Kong. In response, China passed the Hong Kong national security law on 30 June 2020 (NPC 2020). The UK government “expressed its concern over the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy on civil and political freedoms” (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2019, p. 3) and issued the British National (Overseas) visa to eligible Hong Kong citizens (Home Office 2022).
In addition to the old concerns such as “forced labour” and “education camp” in Xinjiang, the most notable issue during that time was the report on reproduction by Adrian Zenz (Zenz 2020).
For example, see: Davis, 27 Jan. 2020; Col. 545; Bruce, 7 May 2019, Cols. 250WH-252WH; Shannon, 11Mar. 2020, Cols. 142WH-143WH; Lewis, 2 Jul. 2019, Col. 1067; Jones, 14 Jul. 2020, Col. 1385.
For example, see: Brabin, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 536; Cummins, 30 Jan. 2020, Col. 1031; Onwurah, 11 Feb. 2020, Cols. 15–16; Cowan, 10 Mar. 2020, Col. 185; Knight, 14 July 2020, Col. 1381.
The UK’s intelligence, security and cyber agency, along with MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). MI5 and MI6 focus on people, whereas GCHQ focuses on getting intelligence through technology and protecting the UK from threats that come from abroad (Cavan 2021).
In 2010, the Government engaged directly with Huawei UK, suggesting the establishment of a Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, which opened in November 2010 (Intelligence and Security Committee 2013).
The Board comprises predominantly government representatives, but also includes senior representatives from UK Communication Service Providers (CSPs), as well as senior representatives of Huawei (NCSC 2015).
It later was directed by the NCSC, which was established in 2016 as a sub-unit of GCHQ, as mentioned earlier.
In addition to the BEP issue and the third-party component support issue in the 2018 report, the 2019 report identifies new issues including configuration management, wider component and lifecycle management etc. (NCSC 2019).
For example, see: West, 18 Oct. 2018, Cols. 576–577; West, 21 Nov. 2018, Col. 241; Young, 23 Jan. 2019, Col. 697; Livingston, 23 Jan. 2019, Col. 698.
For example, see: Platt, 24 Apr. 2019, Col.729; Seely, 30 Jan. 2020, Col. 1023; Seely, 4 Mar. 2020, Cols. 284WH, 287WH, 298WH; Nicolson, 4 Mar. 2020, Col. 292WH; Seely, 10 Mar. 2020, Cols. 188, 202–203.
For example, see: Seely, 4 Mar. 2020, Col. 283WH; Nicolson, 4 Mar. 2020, Col. 292WH; Falkner, 19 May 2020, Cols. 1048–1049.
For example, see: Tugendhat, 1 May 2019, Col. 205; Seely, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 539; Davis, 5 Feb. 2020, Col. 313; Seely, 30 Jan. 2020, Col. 1021; Seely, 4 Mar. 2020, Col. 284WH.
For example, see: Cable, 26 June 2019, Col. 561; Tugendhat, 1 May 2019, Col. 205; Pittenweem, 28 Jan. 2020, Cols. 1343–1345; Paterson, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 542; Paddick, 25 Apr. 2019, Col. 713.
For example, see: McDonald, 4 Mar. 2020, Cols. 285WH-286WH; Tugendhat, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 535; Spellar, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 540; Stone, 10 Mar. 2020, Col. 199; May, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 715.
For example, see: Seely, 3 Apr. 2020, Cols. 282WH–284WH; O’Brien, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 545; Davis, 5 Feb. 2020, Col. 313; Seely, 30 Jan. 2020, Cols. 1020–1021; Alton, 19 May 2020, Col. 1052.
For example, see: Lidington, 24 Apr. 2019, Col. 728; Warman, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 533; Morgan, 27 Jan. 2020, Cols. 1297–1298, May, 1 May 2019, Cols. 204–205; Ashton, 25 Apr. 2019, Cols. 710–711.
For example, see: Warman, 13 Feb. 2020, Cols. 950–951; Warman, 4 Mar. 2020, Cols. 296WH-297WH; Morgan, 28 Jan. 2020, Cols. 1338–1341; Raab, 28 Jan. 2020, Cols. 709–711.
The US placed Huawei on the Entity List on 16th May 2019. Not only was Huawei listed on the Entity List under the destination of China but also this rule added to the Entity List sixty-eight non-US affiliates of Huawei located in twenty-six destinations including the UK (Industry and Security Bureau 2019).
For the identification of High Risk Vendors (HRVs), the NCSC provides a non-exhaustive criteria list (see NCSC 2020b, p. 3).
For example, see: Smith, 4 Mar. 2020, Col. 274WH; Nicolson, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 715; Raab, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 716; Tugendhat, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 721; Edwards, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 722.
On 19 May 2020, the US imposed a new control over certain foreign-produced items. This rule also applies this new control to Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) and its non-US affiliates listed as entities (Industry and Security Bureau 2020).
For example, see: Onwurah, 14 Jul. 2020, Col. 1379.
For example, see: Warman, 27 Jan. 2020, Col. 533; Morgan, 27 Jan. 2020, Cols. 1297–1298, May, 1 May 2019, Cols. 204–205; Ashton, 25 Apr. 2019, Cols. 710–711; Wright, 22 Jul. 2019, Cols. 1135–1136.
For debates, see: Dowden, 10 Mar. 2020, Cols. 189–190; Morgan, 28 Jan. 2020, Cols. 1338–1339; Raab, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 709–710; Dowden, 14 Jul. 2020, Col. 1375–1376; Wright, 22 Jul. 2019, Col. 1135–1136.
For example, see: Warman, 27 Jan. 2020, Cols. 534, 545; Raab, 28 Jan. 2020, Col. 722.
For example, see: Onwurah, 14 Jul. 2020, Col. 1379; Ghani, 14 Jul. 2020, Cols. 1382–1383.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Professor Richard Balme at Sciences Po for discussion and feedback and Thomas Garrett for proofreading.
Funding
This article forms part of the project “Legitimation of Huawei 5G Decision-makings by the UK Government”, supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grant Number: 2022JX044].
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Sun, J., Wang, Z. Huawei 5G in the UK: (de)politicisation, geopolitics and expertise. Br Polit 19, 106–133 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-023-00243-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-023-00243-0