Huawei, founded by a People’s Liberation Army researcher, and ZTE have been accused by the US Congress of being tools of the Chinese intelligence services.
“5G is not just fast data,” Burgess explained in his speech.
The technology “will underpin the communications that Australians rely on every day, from our health systems and the potential applications of remote surgery, to self-driving cars and through to the operation of our power and water supply”.
After studying whether the network could be secure if there were any “high-risk” vendors participating, Burgess indicated the ASD assessment was a firm ‘no’.
“My advice was to exclude high-risk vendors from the entirety of evolving 5G networks,” he said.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Australia should facilitate cooperation between Chinese and Australian companies “instead of citing all sorts of excuses to erect artificial hurdles and enforce discriminatory measures”.