Telecoms giants EE, TalkTalk, and Vodafone have been named as the most complained-about broadband providers in the UK.
The latest quarterly data from Ofcom, covering July to September 2025, shows that customer dissatisfaction remains high across several major networks.
While overall complaint volumes across the industry remained relatively flat compared to the previous quarter, broadband continues to be the primary source of frustration for consumers. EE, TalkTalk, and Vodafone each received 10 complaints per 100,000 customers for their broadband services.
EE also topped the list for pay-TV complaints, while TalkTalk recorded the highest volume of grievances regarding landline services. At the other end of the scale, Plusnet and Sky performed significantly better, with Plusnet receiving the fewest broadband complaints at just 4 per 100,000 subscribers.
Consumers “voting with their feet”
Lisa Barber, Editor of Which? Tech, said:
“For many broadband customers, these findings will come as no surprise. Our research consistently shows that larger providers are outshone by smaller rivals. Plusnet, which received the fewest complaints of the providers covered, is a Which? Recommended Provider.
“Many of the biggest names in broadband have been letting customers down for too long. Delaying improvements and failing to offer a better service will only drive customers to companies that treat them better. Good-quality broadband isn’t a luxury – it is an essential. With plenty of competitive deals available, consumers have more power than ever to vote with their feet and switch.”
Alex Tofts, broadband expert at Broadband Genie, noted that while industry-wide figures are steady, the persistent issues in broadband are concerning.
“Broadband continues to generate more complaints than landline, mobile and pay-TV services,” Tofts said. “If other parts of the telecoms market can reduce complaint volumes, the question is: why can’t broadband?”
Tofts also highlighted the financial benefits of moving to a new provider. “For consumers unhappy with their provider, switching remains a powerful option. 8.8 million broadband customers are currently out of contract and could save an average of £183.60 per year by switching to a new deal.”
The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 along party lines on Thursday to scrap rules that required U.S. phone and internet giants to meet certain minimum cybersecurity requirements.
The FCC’s two Trump-appointed commissioners, chairman Brendan Carr and his Republican colleague Olivia Trusty, voted to withdraw the rules that require telecommunications carriers to “secure their networks from unlawful access or interception of communications.” The Biden administration had adopted these rules prior to leaving office earlier this year.
The FCC’s sole Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, dissented. In a statement following the vote, Gomez called the now-overturned rules the “only meaningful effort this agency has advanced” since the discovery of a sweeping campaign by a China-backed hacking group called Salt Typhoon that involved hacking into a raft of U.S. phone and internet companies.
The hackers broke into more than 200 telcos, including AT&T, Verizon and Lumen, during the years-long campaign to conduct broad-scale surveillance of American officials. In some cases, the hackers targeted wiretap systems that the U.S. government previously required telcos to install for law enforcement access.
The FCC’s move to change the rules sparked rebuke from senior lawmakers, including Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Peters said he was “disturbed” by the FCC’s effort to roll back “basic cybersecurity safeguards” and warned that doing so will “leave the American people exposed.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the rule change “leaves us without a credible plan” to address the basic security gaps exploited by Salt Typhoon and others.
For its part, the NCTA, which represents the telecommunications industry, praised the scrapping of the rules, calling them “prescriptive and counterproductive regulations.”
But Gomez warned that while collaboration with the telecommunications industry is valuable for cybersecurity, it is insufficient without enforcement.
“Handshake agreements without teeth will not stop state-sponsored hackers in their quest to infiltrate our networks,” said Gomez. “They won’t prevent the next breach. They do not ensure that the weakest link in the chain is strengthened. If voluntary cooperation were enough, we would not be sitting here today in the wake of Salt Typhoon.”
All of the prices above are for a single line paid monthly. Google periodically offers half off and other specials, usually only if you bring your own phone.
Activate Your Chip
Once you’ve picked your plan and signed up, Google will mail out a SIM card. It took a couple of days for my physical SIM to arrive, but I’ll gladly take the slight delay if it saves me from setting foot in a physical carrier store. If you’re using an iPhone, Google Pixel, Samsung phone, or other device that supports eSIM, you can set up Fi with an eSIM instantly.
Once your chip arrives, you’ll need to use a SIM tool to pull out the SIM tray and insert the SIM card into your phone. Then, download the Google Fi app (you’ll need to be on Wi-Fi to do this since your chip won’t connect to the network yet), and follow the steps there. If you’re porting in your old phone number, it may take a little longer. For me, after setting up a new number, Fi was up and running after about 5 minutes. That’s it, you’re done.
I have traveled and lived in rural areas for the past 7 years, and I’ve tried just about every phone and hotspot plan around—none of them are anywhere near this simple. The only one that comes close is Red Pocket Mobile, which I still use in addition to Google Fi. There are cheaper plans out there, but in terms of ease of use and reliability, Fi is hard to beat.
Using Google Fi as a Hotspot
You can use Google Fi as a simple way to add cellular connectivity to any device that accepts a SIM card, like a mobile hotspot. You’ll need to activate your Google Fi SIM card with a phone using the Google Fi app, but once the activation is done, you can put that chip in any device your plan allows. If you go with the Unlimited Plus plan, that means you can put your chip in an iPad, Android tablet, or a 4G/5G mobile hotspot. You are still bound by the 50-gigabyte data limit, though, so make sure you don’t go too crazy with Netflix.
Alternatively, consider ordering a data-only SIM. Google allows you to have up to four if you’re on the Unlimited Premium or Flexible plans, meaning you can keep four gadgets—a spare phone or tablet—connected to the internet. The caveat is that they can’t place phone calls or receive texts. You don’t have to use your phone to activate the SIM first. You can order a data-only SIM in the Plan section of your account, under Devices & subscriptions. If you have an eSIM-only device you want to connect, you can tap Connect your tablet and Fi will offer a QR code you can scan to activate the SIM.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a Google account? Yes, you do need a Google account to sign up for Google Fi, but you don’t need to be all-in on Google to use Fi. I have an Android phone, and I use Google apps since that’s what we use here at WIRED, but outside of work I do not use any Google services other than Fi, and it still works great.
Is Google Fi tracking my every move?Yes, but so is your current provider. Google Fi’s terms of service say Google doesn’t sell what’s known as customer proprietary network information—things like call location, details, and features you use—to anyone else.
I’m traveling and want to use Google Fi abroad. Will that work? Fi’s terms of service require you to activate your service in the US, but after that, in theory, it should work anywhere Fi has partnered with an in-country network. WIRED editor Julian Chokkattu has used Fi in multiple countries while traveling. However, based on feedback from WIRED readers, and reading through travel forums, it seems that most people are being cut off if they’re out of the US for more than a few weeks. I would say don’t plan on using Google Fi to fulfill your digital nomad dreams.
Tips and Tricks
There are several features available through the Google Fi app you might not discover at first. One of my favorites is an old Google Voice feature that allows you to forward calls to any phone you like. This is also possible in Google Fi. All you need to do is add a number to Fi’s forwarding list, and any time you get a call, it will ring both your cell phone and that secondary number—whether it’s a home phone, second cell, or the phone at the Airbnb you’re at. This is very handy in places where your signal strength is iffy—just route the call to a landline. Similarly, it can be worth enabling the Wi-Fi calling feature for times when you have access to Wi-Fi but not a cell signal.
Another feature that’s becoming more and more useful as the number of spam calls I get goes ever upward is call blocking. Android and iOS calling apps can block calls, but that sends the caller directly to voicemail, and you still end up getting the voicemail. Block a call through the Google Fi app, and the callers get a message saying your number has been disconnected or is no longer in service. As far as they know, you’ve changed numbers. To set this up, open the Fi app and look under Privacy & security > Manage contact settings > Manage blocked numbers, and then you can add any number you like to the list. If you change your mind, just delete the listing.
One final thing worth mentioning: I have not canceled my Google Fi service despite switching to Starlink for most of my hotspot needs. Instead, I just suspended my Fi service using the app. That way, should I need it for some reason, I can reactivate it very quickly.
The death of the US government’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is starting to result in disconnection of internet service for Americans with low incomes. On Friday, Charter Communications reported a net loss of 154,000 internet subscribers that it said was mostly driven by customers canceling after losing the federal discount. About 100,000 of those subscribers were reportedly getting the discount, which in some cases made internet service free to the consumer.
The $30 monthly broadband discounts provided by the ACP ended in May after Congress failed to allocate more funding. The Biden administration requested $6 billion to fund the ACP through December 2024, but Republicans called the program “wasteful.”
Republican lawmakers’ main complaint was that most of the ACP money went to households that already had broadband before the subsidy was created. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel warned that killing the discounts would reduce internet access, saying an FCC survey found that 77 percent of participating households would change their plan or drop internet service entirely once the discounts expired.
Charter’s Q2 2024 earnings report provides some of the first evidence of users dropping internet service after losing the discount. “Second quarter residential Iiternet customers decreased by 154,000, largely driven by the end of the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program subsidies in the second quarter, compared to an increase of 70,000 during the second quarter of 2023,” Charter said.
Across all ISPs, there were 23 million US households enrolled in the ACP. Research released in January 2024 found that Charter was serving over 4 million ACP recipients and that up to 300,000 of those Charter customers would be “at risk” of dropping internet service if the discounts expired. Given that ACP recipients must meet low-income eligibility requirements, losing the discounts could put a strain on their overall finances even if they choose to keep paying for internet service.
“The Real Question Is the Customers’ Ability to Pay”
Charter, which offers service under the brand name Spectrum, has 28.3 million residential internet customers in 41 states. The company’s earnings report said Charter made retention offers to customers that previously received an ACP subsidy. The customer loss apparently would have been higher if not for those offers.
Light Reading reported that Charter attributed about 100,000 of the 154,000 customer losses to the ACP shutdown. Charter said it retained most of its ACP subscribers so far, but that low-income households might not be able to continue paying for internet service without a new subsidy for much longer:
“We’ve retained the vast majority of ACP customers so far,” Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said on [Friday’s] earnings call, pointing to low-cost internet programs and the offer of a free mobile line designed to keep those customers in the fold. “The real question is the customers’ ability to pay—not just now, but over time.”
The ACP only lasted a couple of years. The FCC implemented the $30 monthly benefit in early 2022, replacing a previous $50 monthly subsidy from the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program that started enrolling users in May 2021.
Separately, the FCC Lifeline program that provides $9.25 monthly discounts is in jeopardy after a court ruling last week. Lifeline is paid for by the Universal Service Fund, which was the subject of a constitutional challenge.
The US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit found that Universal Service fees on phone bills are a “misbegotten tax” that violate the Constitution. But in similar cases, the 6th and 11th circuit appeals courts ruled that the fund is constitutional. The circuit split increases the chances that the Supreme Court will take up the case.
Disclosure: The Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which owns 12.4 percent of Charter, is part of Advance Publications, which also owns Ars Technica and WIRED parent Condé Nast.
Angry T-Mobile customers have filed a class action lawsuit over the carrier’s decision to raise prices on plans that were advertised as having a lifetime price guarantee.
“Based upon T-Mobile’s representations that the rates offered with respect to certain plans were guaranteed to last for life or as long as the customer wanted to remain with that plan, each Plaintiff and the Class Members agreed to these plans for wireless cellphone service from T-Mobile,” said the complaint filed in US District Court for the District of New Jersey. “However, in May 2024, T-Mobile unilaterally did away with these legacy phone plans and switched Plaintiffs and the Class to more expensive plans without their consent.”
The complaint, filed on July 12, has four named plaintiffs who live in New Jersey, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. They are seeking to represent a class of all US residents “who entered into a T-Mobile One Plan, Simple Choice plan, Magenta, Magenta Max, Magenta 55+, Magenta Amplified or Magenta Military Plan with T-Mobile which included a promised lifetime price guarantee but had their price increased without their consent and in violation of the promises made by T-Mobile and relied upon by Plaintiffs and the proposed class.”
The complaint seeks “restitution of all amounts obtained by Defendant as a result of its violation,” plus interest. It also seeks statutory and punitive damages, and an injunction to prevent further “wrongful, unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair conduct.”
“T-Mobile Will Never Change the Price You Pay”
The lawsuit’s allegations will be familiar to those who read our previous articles on the recent price hikes of up to $5 per line. In January 2017, T-Mobile issued a press release announcing the “Un-contract” promise for T-Mobile One plans. “Now, T-Mobile One customers keep their price until THEY decide to change it. T-Mobile will never change the price you pay for your T-Mobile One plan,” the company said at the time.
The price guarantee was also hyped by then CEO John Legere at a press event in Las Vegas. But separately from the announcement, T-Mobile revealed a significant caveat that essentially nullified the promise. T-Mobile said in a FAQ on its website that the only guarantee was T-Mobile would pay your final month’s bill if the carrier raised the price and you decided to cancel.
Many customers saw the prominent lifetime price guarantee but not T-Mobile’s contradiction of that promise and signed up for plans thinking their prices would never be raised. The “Un-contract promise” was offered on certain plans between January 5, 2017, and April 27, 2022.
T-Mobile started offering a different guarantee called Price Lock on April 28, 2022. This was originally more ironclad than the Un-contract, and customers who snagged it were apparently not impacted by this year’s price increases.
But T-Mobile then created a confusing situation with Price Lock. The stronger version of Price Lock was offered from April 28, 2022, to January 17, 2024. It was replaced by a weaker version that is still called Price Lock but is basically the same as the Un-contract. Customers who signed up for Price Lock on or after January 18, 2024, don’t actually have a price lock—but they can get their final month’s bill covered if T-Mobile raises the price and they decide to cancel.
After the price hikes, several T-Mobile customers contacted Ars to express their displeasure. One of those customers said that he canceled and tried to get his final month’s bill covered, but T-Mobile refused to provide the refund. The Federal Communications Commission told us it had received about 1,600 consumer complaints about the price hikes as of late June.
Class Action Plaintiffs
The lawsuit says the plaintiffs and many other customers were swayed to switch plans based on promises made in the January 2017 announcement and afterward.
“The experiences of the named Plaintiffs [are] not unique. Numerous wireless customers were motivated to switch to T-Mobile based upon the Press Events and Videos first promoted at the Las Vegas Trade Show,” the lawsuit said. “The extensive advertising by T-Mobile in print and on television also motivated customers to switch to what have now become legacy plans that T-Mobile customers are no longer able to keep.”
There’s a new plan to revive the Affordable Connectivity Program, a pandemic-era initiative that provides low-income households in the US with discounts on high-speed internet access.
At the end of April, funding for the program was set to run out, affecting millions. But a bipartisan group of senators, led by Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, have proposed using a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization measure as a vehicle for funding the ACP and other telecom programs for a combined $6 billion. Luján’s coalition includes senators J.D. Vance, Peter Welch, Jacky Rosen, Steve Daines, and Roger Wicker.
“Right now, there are over 23 million households participating in this program, that’s more than 55 million people. But it’s not only benefiting these individual families—it’s benefiting their local communities as well,” Luján tells WIRED. “It gives families access to better-paying jobs, to training and education to create economic mobility, to better deals on groceries and household goods. The time is now to save this program.”
The measure also includes a provision for the Federal Communication Commission’s “rip and replace program” which refunds US telecom providers for removing equipment from Chinese manufacturers including Huawei and ZTE from their networks and replacing it with less risky tech. Earlier this month, the FCC asked Congress for around $2 billion to help bolster the program, which has faced a shortfall. That initiative has been in place since 2020, which is when the FCC identified Huawei and ZTE as national security trheats, and then-President Donald Trump signed the “rip and replace” bill into law.
“It’s also critical that we adequately fund the ‘rip-and-replace’ program to ensure our country can move forward the effort to remove and replace untrusted technological equipment. This amendment also empowers the FCC to reauction spectrum licenses to free up airwaves and allow more opportunities for the public to access faster internet speeds and more responsive networks,” Luján said.
The Biden administration has made significant investments in broadband expansion over the last few years. In a speech last month, Biden called on Congress to reinvest in the ACP.
“High-speed internet isn’t a luxury anymore, it’s an absolute necessity,” Biden said. “Congress needs to reauthorize that program now.”
Update, May 7 at 7:19 pm: A previous version of this story misidentified the state Ben Ray Luján represents in the US Senate. It is New Mexico.
The European Parliament is on high alert for cyberattacks and foreign interference in the run-up to the EU election in June.
POLITICO reported in December that an internal review showed that the institution’s cybersecurity “has not yet met industry standards” and is “not fully in-line with the threat level” posed by state-sponsored hackers and other threat groups.
One member of the security and defense subcommittee went in for a routine check on Tuesday, which resulted in a discovery of traces of spyware on their phone. The member told POLITICO it wasn’t immediately clear why they were targeted with hacking software.
Parliament’s Deputy Spokesperson Delphine Colard said in a statement that “traces found in two devices” prompted the email calling on members to have their phones checked.
“In the given geopolitical context and given the nature of the files followed by the subcommittee on security and defence, a special attention is dedicated to the devices of the members of this subcommittee and the staff supporting its work,” the statement said.
The new revelations follow previous incidents with other European Parliament members targeted with spyware. Researchers revealed in 2022 that the phones of members of the Catalan independence movement, including EU politicians, were infected with Pegasus and Candiru, two types of hacking tools. That same year, Greek member of the EU Parliament and opposition leader Nikos Androulakis was among a list of Greek political and public figures found to have been targeted with Predator, another spyware tool. Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola previously also faced an attempted hacking using spyware.
Parliament’s IT service launched a system to check members’ phones for spyware in April last year. It had run “hundreds of operations” since the program started, the statement said.
TAIPEI — 2024 will be a bumper year of elections around the world, but one of the first votes on the calendar will also be one of the most hotly contested and consequential: Taiwan, where there are vital strategic interests at play for both the U.S. and China on January 13.
If the campaign started with expectations in the U.S. that the ruling, pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose top brass are frequent and welcome guests in Washington, would stroll to victory, the final stages of the presidential and legislative race have turned into a nail-biter.
Chinese President’s Xi Jinping’s Communist Party leadership, increasingly assertive in its claim that democratic Taiwan is part of China and keen to see the ruling party in Taipei ousted, is trying to swing the election through a disinformation campaign of hoaxes and outlandish claims on social media.
And the tactics may be working. The latest polls for the first-past-the-post presidential race on the My Formosa portal have DPP leader William Lai on 35.2 percent, only just keeping his nose out in front of his main challenger from the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT), Hou Yu-ih,on 30.6 percent. On Tuesday, the Beijing-leaning United Daily News put both candidates on 31 percent.
“This is not a walk in the park,” admitted Vincent Chao, a city councillor and prominent DPP personality, speaking to POLITICO’s Power Play podcast at a campaign event in New Taipei, a municipality surrounding the capital.
It could hardly be a more febrile period in terms of security fears over the Taiwan Strait, where insistent Chinese maneuvering has been matched by a high-stakes U.S.-backed boost to the island’s defenses. Only on December 15, the U.S. approved another $300 million of spending on defense kit, sparking a retort from China that the expenditure would harm “security interests and threaten peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
Lai’s opponents are playing hard on these security implications of the vote, and are accusing him of bringing the island closer to conflict because of his past comments in favor of the island’s independence. China has, after all, continually warned that independence “means war” and Xi has said Beijing is willing to use “all necessary measures” to secure unification. Lai has hit back that his rivals “are parroting the [Chinese Communist Party line] as propaganda to score electoral benefits.”
For the global economy, open war over Taiwan would be a disaster, perhaps even outstripping the shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, due in particular to the island’s critical role in microchip supplies.
Head-to-head race
The specter of a DPP defeat has raised the temperature of the fevered last few weeks of the campaign.
Chao, the DPP councillor and a former political secretary in Taiwan’s Washington representation, admitted that the DPP ends the year in “a head-to-head race” in the final stretch. “I mean, it’s democracy and the party has been in power for eight years. Anything could change,” he said.
Wearing a jaunty white and green “Team Taiwan” tracksuit, the party’s signature colors, he talks above the backstage din of an evening event, held among the tower block estates of New Taipei. Volunteers hand out pork dumplings, the outgoing president Tsai Ing-wen gives a rousing speech about freedom and security, and there are ballads of national loyalty and singalong love songs. It feels heartfelt, but also very Taiwanese in its orderliness, the crowd sitting on stools in the evening heat, waving small flags in unison.
Chao is candid about the scale of China’s social media offensive.
The specter of a DPP defeat has raised the temperature of the fevered last few weeks of the campaign | Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
“What we’re seeing is a much more sophisticated China,” Chao reflected. “They’ve grown much more confident in their abilities to influence our elections, not through military coercion or other overt means, but through disinformation, through influencing public opinion, through controlling the information that people see … through social media organizations like TikTok.”
One of the many unfounded stories that gained currency on social posts was a claim the U.S. had asked Taiwan to develop biological weapons research, a rumor aimed at raising anxiety about an arms race. Another accused the DPP of covert surveillance of its rivals.
Trade and business links are another lever. According to Japan’s Nikkei newspaper, some 300 executives from big Taiwanese businesses operating China were called to a meeting by by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao, a close ally of China’s President Xi, in early December and roundly encouraged to fly home to Taiwan support a pro-Beijing outcome in January.
A third concern is an international system buckling under new conflicts and crises, with less time to devote to Taiwan’s freedoms, all compounded by an uncertain outcome in the upcoming U.S. election. In the wake of Beijing’s ’s clampdown on freedoms in Hong Kong and with the backwash of the Ukraine crisis, anxieties run high among DPP supporters about Taiwan’s outlook and the need for high levels of deterrence.
“We really do not want to be the next Ukraine,” Chao added, with feeling.
Bending with Beijing
Opinion is strongly divided about the smartest tactical response toward China’s muscle flexing.
Opinion is strongly divided about the smartest tactical response toward China’s muscle flexing. | Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
Across town, at one of the opposition’s bases, where campaigners wear tracksuits in the white and blue of the Kuomintang party, International Relations Director Alexander Huang said his political troops were “within touching distance” of a possible victory.
Keen to shake off a reputation of being reflexively pro-China, as opposed to merely cautious about riling its powerful neighbour, the KMT hosted cocktails for foreign journalists in a trendy, Christmas-decorated bar, bringing together Chinese news-agency writers with Western reporters covering the election.
Huang, who hails from a military intelligence background and studied Chinese military and security doctrine in Washington, argued renewed Western support and commitments of defence expenditure by the U.S. administration increased the risk of something backfiring over Taiwan’s security. “We are under a great military threat [from China],” he told Power Play. “Our position is deterrence without provocation: assurance without appeasement.”
He also reckoned the current chilly relations between the governing DPP party and Beijing were widening distrust. “Our current government has no direct communication with the other side. If you are not able to communicate your view to your adversary, how can you change that?”
It’s less clear what reassurances the KMT expects from Beijing in return for a more accommodating relationship. Huang cites a possible decrease in trade tensions, which can hit Taiwanese agriculture and fishing when Beijing turns the screws, and further action on climate change and pollution (Taiwan is downwind of China’s emissions).
Colorful cast
The race certainly does not lack for colorful personalities.
The DPP’s presidential candidate, Lai, is a doctor and parliamentarian, while his KMT rival Hou is a former policeman and mayor in New Taipei. Mindful that the mood has become cynical about political elites, both sides have chosen frontmen who can claim humble roots: Hou hails from a family that scratched a living as food market traders, while Lai, the epitome of a slick Taiwanese professional, grew up with a widowed mother after his father died in a mining accident.
Hou is a former policeman and mayor in New Taipei | Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The “Veep” contenders are flashier than the main candidates and more media-friendly. Hsiao Bi-khim, educated in the U.S. and until recently ambassador to Washington, is a pet-lover who styles herself as an agile “cat warrior” in stark contrast to China’s pugnacious “wolf-warrior” diplomats. Her KMT opponent is Jaw Shaw-kong, a formidable, populist-tinged debater and TV personality, who channels overt pro-Beijing sentiment, recently calling for more alignment in military planning with China’s leadership.
The billionaire Foxconn founder Terry Gou, who had run as a maverick, wafting pets as incentives to couples to have more babies to combat a worryingly low birthrate, quit the race after China’s tax authorities launched punitive investigations into his company, the builder of iPhones.
Russell Hsiao of the Global Taiwan Institute, a non-partisan research organization, reckoned that even if the DPP wins, its mandate will be less compelling than in the glory days of 2020, when it surged to a record level.
The guessing game of how likely an intervention — or even invasion — by China is helps explain the nervy tenor of this race.
The KMT’s Huang thought a “full-scale, kinetic invasion” is unlikely in the immediate future. How long does he think that guarantee would hold? “I would say not for the next five years, if we get our policy right.”
Hardly the most durable time-frame.
Taipei politics being a small world, Huang is a longstanding frenemy of the DPP’s Chao, who counters that Taiwan urgently needs to retain its defiant stance and deepen its strategic alliances with the West. They just disagree widely on the means to secure its future.
“The aim of [Beijing’s] engagements is unification … by force if necessary. Democracy, freedom, they are not just words. They represent what our people sincerely believe and hope to uphold.”
Stuart Lau contributed reporting.
Anne McElvoy is host of POLITICO’s weekly Power Play interview podcast, whose latest episode comes from the Taiwan election campaign.
Chinese technology giant Huawei has had it with European Union officials calling it a “high-risk” supplier.
The firm, a leading manufacturer of telecoms equipment, filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman office last month after the bloc’s industry chief Thierry Breton described Huawei and its smaller Chinese rival ZTE as “high-risk suppliers” at a press conference on June 15.
Breton was presenting a report reviewing the EU’s policies on secure 5G, which allow member countries to restrict or prohibit “entities considered high-risk suppliers, notably because they are subject to highly intrusive, third countries laws on national intelligence and data security,” the commissioner said, naming both Huawei and ZTE in his statements.
Huawei told POLITICO in a statement Friday that the company “strongly opposes and disagrees with the comments made by the European Commission representatives publicly naming and shaming an individual company without legal basis while lacking any justification or due process,” confirming the firm is the one behind the complaint with the EU Ombudsman.
“We expect the European Commission to address our claims and rectify their comments for the sake of Huawei’s reputation,” the spokesperson added.
The European Ombudsman found “insufficient grounds to open an inquiry into the comments themselves” but it has asked the Commission to send Huawei a reply to its complaints by November 3, Michal Zuk, a communication officer for the EU watchdog, told POLITICO.
The Shenzhen-based company has been fighting restrictions on the use of its 5G kit for the past few years. It has fought and lost a court challenge in Sweden against the country’s telecoms regulator and more recently filed a lawsuit with a Lisbon court against a resolution by Portugal’s cybersecurity regulator.
At the core of Western concerns surrounding Huawei is whether the firm can be instrumentalized, pressured or infiltrated by the Chinese government to gain access to critical data in Western countries.
The Commission didn’t immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
Thierry Breton is winning the war of ideas in Brussels.
The ex-CEO is a political whirlwind with a gigantic portfolio as internal market chief, the backing of French President Emmanuel Macron and lots of proposals. He’s been touring European Union capitals to win support for plans to shield Europe’s industry from crippling energy prices, American subsidies and “naive” EU free traders.
France’s decades-long push for more state intervention is finally findingsome echo in Berlin and the 13th floor of the Berlaymont building, occupied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who largely owes her job to Macron.
Omnipresent and ebullient, Breton is playing a key role in marshaling industry and political support for sweeping but so far vague plans to boost clean tech, secure key raw materials and overhaul EU checks on government support that he blasts as too slow to help companies.
“Of course there is resistance; my job is precisely to manage and align everyone,” he told French TV this week of his January meetings with Spanish, Polish and Belgian leaders to flog a forthcoming industrial policy push that could be a turning point in how far European governments will finance companies.
Time is short. Von der Leyen wants to line up proposals for a February summit. European industry is complaining that it can’t swallow far higher energy prices and tighter regulation for much longer, with at least one announcing a European shutdown and an Asian expansion.
Breton said governments don’t need convincing on the need for rapid action. But he’s running up against one of Europe’s sacred cows — EU state aid rules run by Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager that curb government support with lengthy checks to make sure companies don’t get unfair help. She’s also under intense pressure to preserve a “level playing field” as smaller countries worry about German and French financial firepower.
The French internal market commissioner’s bullish style often sees him act as if he’s got a role in subsidies. In the fall, he sent a letter to EU countries asking them to send views on emergency state aid rules to the internal market department, which is under his supervision, two EU officials recalled.
In a meeting with European diplomats, a Commission representative had to correct it, the EU officials said, asking capitals to make sure the input goes instead to the competition department overseen by Vestager.
Europe First
While Breton doesn’t like to be called a protectionist, his latest mission has been to protect Europe from its transatlantic friend.
As early as September, one Commission official said, the Frenchman was mandated by Europe’s industry to speak out against U.S. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provides tax credits for U.S.-made electric cars and support to American battery supply chains.
U.S President Joe Biden gives remarks during an event celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act on September 13, 2022 | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
His Paris-backed campaign charged ahead while EU officials and diplomats tiptoed around the subject. Some within the Commission headquarters found his bad cop routine helpful in keeping pressure on the U.S.
“He’s been constructive, though clearly disruptive,” said Tyson Barker, head of the technology and global affairs program at the German Council of Foreign Relations.
The Frenchmanhas even pitched himself as the bloc’s “sheriff” against Silicon Valleygiants, warning billionaire Elon Musk that an overhaul of the Twitter social network can only go so far since “in Europe, the bird will fly by our rules.”
“Big Tech companies only understand balances of power,” said Cédric O, a former French digital minister who worked with Breton during the French EU Council presidency. “When [Breton and Musk] see each other, it necessarily remains cordial, but Breton shows his teeth and rightly so. It’s his job.”
Breton can even surprise his own services, according to two EU officials. In May, the Commission’s department responsible for digital policy — DG CONNECT — was caught off guard when Breton announced in the press that he would unveil plans by year-end to make sure that technology giants forked out for telecoms networks.
In so doing, Breton — who was CEO of France Télécom in the early 2000s — resurrected a long-dormant and fractious policy debate that had been put to rest almost a decade ago, when erstwhile Digital Commissioner Neelie Kroes ordered Europe’s telecoms operators to “adapt or die” rather than seek money from content providers.
After Breton’s commitments, the Commission’s services were soon scrambling to develop some sort of a coherent policy program to deliver on the Frenchman’s comments. A consultation is scheduled for early this year.
Carte blanche
Breton is a rare creature in the halls of the Berlaymont, where policy is hatched slowly after extensive consultation. To a former CEO with a broad remit — his portfolio runs from the expanse of space to the tiniest of microchips — rapid reaction matters more than treading on toes or singing from the hymn sheet. This often sees him floating ideas and then pulling back.
Last year he alarmed environmentalists by raising the prospect of a U-turn on the EU’s polluting car ban. He wagged his finger at German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for a solo trip to China. He called for nuclear energy to be considered green. He has pushed out grand projects — such as industrial alliances on batteries and cloud, or a cyber shield — that he doesn’t always follow up on.
He’s even pushed forward a multibillion-euro EU communication satellite program dubbed Iris², a favorite of French aerospace companies, that will see the bloc build a rival to Musk’s space-based Starlink broadband constellation.
“It’s clear that he’s been given more free rein than others,” said one EU official. “He has von der Leyen’s ear,” the official added, noting that Breton enjoys “privileged access” to the Commission president — who may be mindful that she’ll need French support for a second term.
According to an official, Breton “has von der Leyen’s ear” and enjoys “privileged access” to the Commission president | Valeria Mongeli/AFP via Getty Images
Indeed, Breton’s massive role was partly designed as a counterweight to a German president.
“There is a criticism of von der Leyen for being too German,” explained Sébastien Maillard, director of the Jacques Delors Institute think tank. “There may inevitably be a division of roles between them — [where Breton is] a counterbalance.”
He’s been called an “unguided missile,” but more often than not, the Frenchman has Paris’ backing when going off script. His October op-ed with Italian colleague Paolo Gentiloni, which called for greater European financial solidarity, was part of France’s agenda, according to one high-ranking Commission official.
“When he went out in the press with Gentiloni against Scholz’s €200 billion, he was clearly doing the job for Macron,” the official said.
His November call for a rethink on the 2035 car engine ban came just after a week after critical green legislation had been finalized by Commission Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans and jarred with the EU’s own position at the COP 27 climate summit in Indonesia. But it aped the position of French auto industry captains, such as Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares and Renault’s Luca de Meo, who wanted Brussels to slam the brakes on the climate drive.
Breton had not coordinated his car comments with colleagues in advance, according to two Commission officials.
Less than 10 days later, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne echoed caution about the “extremely ambitious” engine ban and warned that pivoting to electric car manufacturing was daunting.
Going A-list
Breton acknowledged himself that he wasn’t Macron’s first choice for the critical EU post, telling POLITICO at a live event that he was a “plan B commissioner.”
Asked if he was targeting an A-list job for the new Commission mandate in 2024, he said he “may be able to consider a new plan B assignment — if it is a plan B.”
“He is thinking about the future,” said one EU official. “Look at his LinkedIn posts. He is thinking past the next European elections. He definitely wants to convince Macron to get an expanded portfolio.”
Grabbing the Commission’s top job may be tricky, relying on how EU leaders will line up, according to multiple EU and French officials.
There are other jobs, including overturning the unwritten law that no French or German candidate can hold the economically powerful competition portfolio. Another option could be becoming Europe’s official digital czar, combining the enforcement powers of the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act into a supranational digital enforcement agency, one EU official said.
Breton has shrugged off speculation on his long-term plans.
“All my life, I have been informed of my next potential job 15 minutes before,” he said last month.
Jakob Hanke Vela, Stuart Lau, Barbara Moens, Camille Gijs and Mark Scott contributed reporting.
Europe’s largest economy Germany hasn’t kicked its habit of using Chinese kit for its 5G telecoms networks yet.
A new study analyzing Huawei’s market share in Europe estimates that Germany relies on Chinese technology for 59 percent of its 5G networks. Other key markets including Italy and the Netherlands are also among eight countries where over half of 5G networks run on Chinese equipment.
The study, by Copenhagen-based telecoms consultancy Strand Consult, offers a rare glimpse of how some telecoms operators have relied on Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE in the early stage of Europe’s 5G rollout. The figures also underline one of Western officials’ fears: that Europe’s pushback against Chinese technology for communications networks was slow to wean operators off Huawei.
“It’s easier to preach than to practice,” said John Strand, founder of the consultancy, of EU governments’ hesitance to throw up clear barriers to using Chinese telecoms equipment.
“It is more dangerous to be dependent on Chinese telecoms networks than to be dependent on Russian gas. Digital infrastructure is the fundament of society,” Strand said.
The study matches a warning by the European Commission’s digital chief Margrethe Vestager, who said last month that “a number of countries have passed legislation but they have not put it into effect … Making it work is even better.”
“It is not only Germany, but it is also Germany,” Vestager said in November.
Germany’s ministries of digital affairs, interior and economic affairs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Huawei also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Clinging to Huawei kit
European governments in the past two years have imposed security policies on the telecoms industry to cut down on Chinese kit.
In some countries, this has led to a full stop on using Huawei and its smaller Chinese rival ZTE. Strand’s study estimates that nine EU countries, as well as Norway and the Faroe Islands, have no Chinese equipment in new 5G networks at all. France (17 percent) and Belgium (30 percent) have a much lower presence of Chinese kit in 5G than was the case in their 4G and 3G networks.
But the EU regime on using Chinese technology in 5G is a patchwork. In other EU countries those policies either allow for operators to still rely on Huawei for parts of their networks or require the government to actively step in to stop deals.
The Berlin government in the past two years was criticized for being slow in setting up the legal framework that now allows it to intervene on contracts between operators and vendors if ministers choose to do so. Olaf Scholz’s government has taken a more critical stance on Chinese technology and just last month blocked Chinese investors from buying a German chip plant over potential security threats.
But Germany’s largest operator Deutsche Telekom has also maintained a strategic partnership with Huawei for years and it and others have worked with Huawei on the early stages of rolling out 5G, Strand’s report suggests.
In Italy, the government has “golden powers” to stop contracts with Huawei. The former government led by Mario Draghi, seen as close to the U.S., intervened on a couple of deals but it is still unclear how the current government led by far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will position itself.
In other, smaller countries like the Netherlands, operators were quick to launch 5G networks and some did so using Huawei, especially in “radio access network” (RAN) parts — effectively preempting EU and national decisions to cut down on Chinese kit.
Strand’s data, gathered from European industry players in the past months, show Huawei was quick to provide operators with 5G gear in the first stages of Europe’s rollout.
But another boutique telecoms consultancy, Dell’Oro, compiled data recently that showed the firm in the past year started running into serious obstacles in selling its kit.
As of early last year — right as European officials were changing direction on 5G security — Sweden’s Ericsson overtook Huawei in market share of new European sales of radio access network (RAN) equipment for 3G, 4G and 5G equipment, according to updated figures Dell’Oro compiled this summer, shared with POLITICO by an industry official. Radio access networks make up the largest chunk of network investment and include base stations and antennas.
For 5G RAN specifically, Huawei lost its initial position as a market leader at the start of the rollout; it now provides 22 percent of sales, with Ericsson at 42 percent and Nokia at 32 percent in Europe, Dell’Oro estimated.
A POLITICO investigation last month revealed how the Chinese tech giant was consolidating its operations in Europe and scaling down its lobbying and branding operations across a series of important markets, including France, the United Kingdom and its European representation in Brussels.
Pressed by the United States and increasingly shunned on a continent it once considered its most strategic overseas market, Huawei is pivoting back toward the Chinese market, focusing its remaining European attention on just a few countries, among them Germany.
China hawks, however, fear that Huawei could continue to supply 5G equipment because of the loopholes and political considerations of national governments.
The new figures could serve as “an eye opener for a lot of governments and regulators in Europe,” Strand said.
The Chinese telecoms giant is pushing out its pedigreed Western lobbyists, retrenching its European operations and putting its ambitions for global leadership on ice.
The reasons for doing this have little to do with the company’s commercial potential — Huawei is still able to offer cutting-edge technology at lower costs than its competitors — and everything to do with politics, according to interviews with more than 20 current and former staff and strategic advisers to the company.
Pressed by the United States and increasingly shunned on a Continent it once considered its most strategic overseas market, Huawei is pivoting back toward the Chinese market, focusing its remaining European attention on the few countries — Germany and Spain, but also Hungary — still willing to play host to a company widely viewed in the West as a security risk.
“It’s no longer a company floating on globalization,” said one Huawei official. “It’s a company saving its ass on the domestic market.” Like most of the other Huawei employees interviewed for this article, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe the company’s travails.
Huawei’s predicament was summed up by the company’s founder Ren Zhengfei in a speech to executives at the company’s Shenzhen headquarters in July. He laid out the trifecta of challenges the company has faced over the last three years: hostility from Washington; disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic; and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which upended global supply chains and heightened European concerns about over-dependence on countries like China.
“The environment we faced in 2019 was different from the one we face today,” Ren said in his speech, which wasn’t made public but was seen by POLITICO. “Don’t assume that we will have a brighter future.”
“We previously had an ideal for globalization striving to serve all humanity,” he added. “What is our ideal today? Survival!”
‘The moment globalist Huawei died’
As the company goes into hibernation in the West, it’s sidelining or pushing out the senior Western managers it hired just a few years ago to counter the U.S. assault on its business.
“Westerners were listened to,” one Huawei official working in Europe said. “This is no longer the case … No one is listening.”
Huawei’s Brussels office — once a key hub for the company to lobby against European restrictions on its kit — has been folded fully into European management, now headquartered in Düsseldorf.
The office this summer lost its head of communications, Phil Herd, a former BBC journalist who joined the company in October 2019 at the start of its pushback against political pressure in Europe. The office has also recently lost at least three other key staff members handling lobbying and policy. (Tony) Jin Yong, the chief representative to the Brussels institutions, is now in charge of government affairs across Western Europe and spends most of his time in the Düsseldorf office.
Employees sits in a meeting room inside Huawei Technologies Co. Cyber Security Transparency Centre in Brussels | Yuriko Nakao/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In London, Huawei’s U.K. Director of Communications Paul Harrison left his role in October, with other officials leaving around the same time. Harrison joined Huawei from a senior news editing job at U.K. broadcaster Sky News in 2019.
In Paris, the company’s Marketing and Communications Director Stéphane Curtelin left his role in September, the local magazine Challenges reported. Before then, the Paris office lost its Head of Government and Security Affairs Vincent de Crayencour, a veteran French cybersecurity official with extensive government experience who joined Huawei in 2020. The company’s Chief Representative of the Paris Office Linda Han also left her role before the summer.
In Warsaw, the company’s local PR manager Szymon Solnica departed Huawei in September. “The crises I’ve dealt with on a daily basis in recent years were colossal ones,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing his departure.
Huawei officials speaking in authorized interviews dismissed the departures as regular turnover. “There is a fluctuation always in companies, not only in Huawei … Some people are leaving and some other people are coming,” a spokesperson for Huawei Europe said in an authorized interview last week.
But others in the company privately acknowledged the departures reflect a radical shift that began in September 2021.
“The moment Meng got off the plane was the moment the globalist Huawei died,” one official said.
As the daughter of the founder — and the presumptive heir to the company’s leadership — Meng had played a key role in the legal and public relations fight between Huawei and Washington. Since returning from Canada, she reached Huawei’s top ranks as deputy chairwoman at the company’s headquarters and triggered a corporate reshuffle at the top.
(Catherine) Chen Lifang, who led the firm’s global communications department during the height of American pressure, was moved off the board of directors and into a role on the supervisory board.
The global comms department is now represented on Huawei’s board by Peng Bo, known in Europe as Vincent Peng, the former president of Huawei’s Western Europe region. Peng’s ascendency is part of the company’s efforts to move its European operations closer to Shenzhen.
The agenda to streamline public affairs in Europe is led by Guo Aibing — a former journalist for Bloomberg News in Hong Kong. Guo was parachuted into Europe and is executing cuts and consolidation of the firm’s lobbying and communication across the Continent.
The company is also restructuring its activities in Europe. The company’s plans — previously unannounced — are to consolidate the entire Continent into just one area of operations, headquartered in Düsseldorf.
Hampers and gifts at the new Huawei store in Barcelona | Paco Freire/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Huawei currently divides the Continent into two markets: Western Europe, run from Düsseldorf; and Eastern Europe and the Nordics, with a top executive based in Warsaw.
The restructuring “will help us to bring more synergies within the whole European business operation; will bring more value more directly to our customers here in Europe,” said the Huawei Europe spokesperson.
Broadly, the company’s staffing levels, currently around 12,000 people, will remain “stable,” the spokesperson said.
The company is also retrenching elsewhere, according to Ren. “We will give up markets in some countries,” the firm’s founder said in his speech this summer. “For example, we will give up markets in the Five Eyes countries and India.”
The “Five Eyes” refers to an intelligence-sharing arrangement between the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. All five countries have banned or are in the process of banning Huawei and other Chinese companies from their critical infrastructure because of security concerns.
Instead, Huawei is concentrating on its domestic market, which accounts for a large proportion of global 5G and where Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia are struggling to maintain market share.
Trump effect
Huawei’s strategic retreat is remarkable for a company that until recently poured millions of euros into lobbyists and PR campaigns in an effort to expand and maintain its European foothold.
Throughout most of the 2010s, Huawei was considered by many in Europe to be a friendly face among the tech firms cuddling up to power. Peculiar in its approaches, yes, but cordial and — to many — beneficial to the Continent’s interests because it increased competition and cut the price tag on the next generation of telecoms networks.
The company became known for its generous gift bags, often including a Huawei phone, and lavish parties in glamorous venues featuring fancy buffets and dance performances — like its reception celebrating the Chinese new year at the Concert Noble in Brussels.
Glitzy bashes later became part of a supercharged response to political headwinds from Washington over concerns that the Chinese-built telecoms infrastructure poses a serious security and spying risk.
Those headwinds started blowing under U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration but reached hurricane force following Donald Trump’s election. By 2019, the company was under American sanctions, with Ren’s daughter Meng in Canada awaiting the result of a U.S. extradition request.
Keith Krach, a former under-secretary of state in the Trump administration, recalled how Washington was “hitting the panic button.”
He recalled asking European ministers about their relationship with China. “And they’d say, ‘Well, they’re an important trading partner’ and all that. And then they looked at both sides of the room, there’s nobody in the room, and whispered to me: ‘But we don’t trust them.’”
To navigate the geopolitical storm, the firm offered six-figure salaries to top operators across the Western world. It assembled a high-caliber team of former Western journalists and politicians with direct lines to places of power like the Elysée and Westminster, POLITICO learned from several who received such offers.
Initially, the gambit seemed to work.
Huawei’s message — that the U.S. itself posed spying risks and that Washington’s aggression was driven by economic interests — gained traction, particularly in places like Germany, where Trump proved a useful foil.
“The case that Trump made was almost more counterproductive,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. Huawei also received support from big telco operators, who saw value in the cheap equipment combined with responsive customer service.
By the beginning of 2020, Huawei seemed to have weathered U.S. calls for all-out bans. On January 28, then-U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave the company the green light to build part of the country’s 5G infrastructure. Just a day later, the European Union presented a plan to shift away from over-reliance on Chinese vendors but left the door open for Huawei to lobby national governments to keep market access for its technology.
Keith Krach said the U.S. was hitting the panic button | Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit
Then came the pandemic. With the coronavirus originating from Wuhan killing thousands, Trump ramped up his anti-China broadside in May 2020 with fresh sanctions against Huawei that basically cut off their supply of semiconductors.
By July, the U.K.’s Johnson completely reversed course and announced all Huawei equipment would have to be stripped from British 5G networks, even as the government estimated the move would delay the rollout of the technology and add half a billion pounds in costs.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, European governments including France, Sweden, Romania, the Baltic countries, Belgium and Denmark either banned Huawei equipment in key parts of the country’s 5G network or required its operators to wean themselves off its kit in the medium term.
Huawei’s smartphone business — once on its way to challenging Apple and Samsung in Europe — meanwhile was crushed by U.S. sanctions that cut its devices off from Android, the Google-owned operating system.
Putin changes the calculus
These setbacks were painful, but they weren’t yet considered fatal. Trump’s election loss and the ebbing of the pandemic in Europe seemed to offer an opportunity for a counteroffensive.
At the beginning of 2021, Huawei’s Brussels lobbyists were still optimistic that Europe’s hunger for cheap, speedy 5G installation would win out over security concerns. They even had meetings lined up in the European Parliament to make their case.
Those meetings got canceled on February 24, the day Putin launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine. For many in Europe, the risk-benefit calculation regarding Huawei had changed overnight.
“The biggest change I’ve seen came from the realization that we’re dependent on Russian gas — especially in Germany,” said John Strand, a telecoms analyst who has tracked Huawei’s market impact in Europe for the past years. “It begs the question: What’s worse, being dependent on Russian gas or on Chinese telecoms infrastructure?”
Under President Joe Biden, pressure on Huawei only increased, and Washington’s warnings now come from a more sympathetic messenger. In October, the European Commission issued a fresh warning against using Huawei technology to underpin 5G networks, and the U.K. government reaffirmed its requirement to strip Huawei equipment from British telecoms infrastructure.
The company’s travails have knocked the legs from underneath its lobbying efforts — and eaten into its market share.
Before the pandemic, the company regularly hosted European politicians, journalists and business leaders at its Shenzhen headquarters, a massive campus with buildings in different European architectural styles showcasing its global ambitions.
China’s zero-COVID policy made that impossible.
The company for years was the biggest spender at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world’s largest telecoms industry event. This year, the company’s on-the-ground presence was a pale imitation of previous showings, which it used to launch new products with razzle-dazzle and astronomical marketing budgets.
But perhaps no high-flying event illustrates the extent of the turnaround than the World Economic Forum in Davos, which once counted Huawei among its main sponsors. On January 21, 2020, just a week before Johnson sided with Huawei over Trump, Ren was onstage at the alpine resort, discussing the future of AI with “Sapiens” author Yuval Noah Harari.
The next year, the global gathering of political power players and financial titans in Davos was, thanks to the pandemic, canceled. When it reconvened in the summer of 2022, Huawei top chiefs missed the gabfest. Under Beijing’s zero-COVID policy, they couldn’t leave China.
Geopolitics hits the balance sheets
The firm still has a solid share in some big national markets, among them Germany and Spain, industry analysts say.
A 2020 study by Strand Consult — still the most comprehensive public overview of Huawei’s footprint in Europe — showed just how deeply the Chinese firm was ingrained in European markets: In 15 out of 31 countries Strand studied, more than half of all 4G radio access network equipment (RAN) came from Chinese vendors.
But in many of these markets, authorities have imposed measures forcing operators to phase out or at least significantly limit the use of “high-risk vendors” — commonly understood to be state-affiliated Huawei and the Chinese military-linked telecom ZTE — in coming years.
These are beginning to bite.
In the early race to implement 5G, Huawei outpaced its rivals in Europe. However, as of early last year — right as European officials were changing direction on 5G security — Sweden’s Ericsson overtook Huawei in market share of new European sales of radio access networks, according to proprietary figures compiled by boutique telecoms research firm Dell’Oro, shared with POLITICO by an industry official. Radio access networks make up the largest chunk of network investment and include base stations and antennas.
The latest update, from the second quarter of 2022, showed Ericsson at 41 percent, Huawei at 28 percent and Finnish Nokia at 27 percent. This includes new sales of base stations and antennas across 3G, 4G and 5G — some of which is part of running contracts with operators.
For 5G RAN specifically, the shift is even clearer: Huawei lost its initial position as market leader at the start of the rollout; it now provides 22 percent of sales, with Ericsson at 42 percent and Nokia at 32 percent in Europe, Dell’Oro estimated.
Industry analysts say Huawei’s move to consolidate and scrap key public affairs roles could hurt the company in countries where it still has skin in the game: Most importantly, Germany, Italy and Spain. In these large European markets, governments have been slow to impose measures on “high-risk vendors” — and particularly slow and soft in enforcing them.
Europe’s largest operators, like Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone, also have running contracts with Huawei, meaning the Chinese firm is at least still providing maintenance and keeping networks running — and potentially still supporting parts of the 5G rollout.
But in Germany, at least, Olaf Scholz’s new government has taken a more critical stance on Chinese technology. This month, Economy Minister Robert Habeck — who has taken a hawkish approach to China — formally blocked Chinese investors from buying a German chip plant over potential security threats.
Budapest nights
Huawei, of course, hasn’t completely given up on Europe.
Those still giving the company face time in Brussels this summer were presented with a weighty gift bag.
In addition to glossy hardcovers from the company’s PR operation — with titles like “Choose a Smarter Future: A contribution to Europe’s next digital policy” and “Ten Years of Connecting Europe” — the bag contained a memoir by Frédéric Pierucci. A former executive with the French infrastructure manufacturer Alstom, Pierucci was arrested by the FBI on bribery charges in 2013 — just as the American conglomerate General Electric was negotiating to take over Alstom’s nuclear operations.
Titled “The American Trap,” the book argues that its author was a hostage in Washington’s secret economic war on its allies.
“One after the other, some of the world’s largest companies are being actively destabilized to the benefit of the U.S., in acts of economic sabotage that seem to be the beginning of what’s to come…” reads the publisher’s summary.
It’s a narrative with deep appeal inside the company, and one that creates a natural rapport with other governments that see themselves as standing up to liberal superpowers. As Huawei searches for friends on the Continent, Hungary — increasingly in opposition to the rest of the EU on how to engage with China and Russia — remains a vocal ally, and the company is leaning into that relationship.
This year, in September, Huawei’s CEE & Nordic region unit held its annual Innovation Day event in Hungary, home to the company’s largest European logistics center.
On the banks of the Danube, tech entrepreneurs schmoozed in English and Hungarian, with some Chinese and German mixed in, over made-to-order coffee and plentiful canapés at Budapest’s cupola-topped Castle Garden Bazaar.
Inside the conference hall, bilingual hosts teed up mini-documentaries about protecting local salmon breeds in Norway and preventing floods in Hungary. Small business execs highlighted drones that monitor crops in Austria and potential forest fires in Greece, all on Huawei 5G networks.
With simultaneous translation available in Hungarian, Huawei featured research it commissioned from the Economist Intelligence Unit reiterating Europe’s laggard status on 5G use and implementation. It was an implicit reminder that dismantling Huawei’s infrastructure will have real consequences.
But the company also highlighted what it hopes will be a bigger part of its portfolio: products less likely to inspire security concerns, like inverters for solar panels.
Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó said Hungary will stand firm against international pressure | Laszlo Balogh/Getty images
“Huawei is committed to the vision of a green Europe,” said Jeff Wang, the company’s current head of public affairs and comms, in a video address to the Budapest crowd, where he noted the 10 years he spent working on the Continent.
For weeks leading up to the event, Huawei officials were pushing to get Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to speak. While that didn’t pan out, Orbán sent one of his top lieutenants — Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó — to deliver a message.
“We are not going to discriminate [against] any investing company because of their country of origin,” Szijjártó said. Budapest will stand firm against “international pressure” he added, to block “the presence of Huawei here in Hungary.”
Radoslaw Kedzia, Huawei’s vice president for the CEE & Nordic region (and the first non-Chinese to achieve CEO status inside the company, in the Czech Republic in 2015), said there was no political calculation behind the double-down in Hungary.
“Let’s not demonize us, OK? We are like any other company,” Kedzia said.
If a business assessment offers the “prospect of the next 10-20 years of stable operation, then you think it is good to concentrate some of your resources in that particular country,” he added.
Likewise, the European spokesperson insisted, Huawei communicates with every country in the “same way, on the same level.” The company focuses on technology and does “not engage,” he said, in “political games.”
One thing is certain: When it comes to the great European game, Huawei has lost — and sent all its political players home.
Peter O’Brien, Elisa Braun, Stuart Lau and Matt Honeycombe-Foster contributed reporting.
BALI, Indonesia — Every European leader at this week’s G20 summit in Bali wanted a one-on-one meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Not everyone got one.
The Europeans’ desire to meet Xi was driven by the fact that this week was the first opportunity to meet the Chinese leader at a major diplomatic jamboree since the lockdowns of early 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic started in China and spread to the world.
The Europeans always had to accept that they were going to be fighting for the crumbs in terms of the timetable. U.S. President Joe Biden spent three and a half hours with Xi, while France’s President Emmanuel Macron had to be content with (a still perfectly respectable) 43 minutes.
China conspicuously revived its long-established tactic of courting specific EU countries and their national interests, something it has often used to destabilize Brussels. (When Brussels threatened an all-out trade war in 2013 over China undercutting the EU market in solar panels and telecoms equipment, China expertly shattered EU unity by threatening retaliatory action against French and Spanish wine, playing Paris and Madrid against EU trade officials.)
Once again in Bali, China took the canny nation-to-nation approach, meeting Macron, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte, while avoiding European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. A meeting with Michel, at least, had been widely expected in diplomatic circles.
China bristles at the EU designation that it is a “systemic rival” to Brussels, and instead decided to leverage its influence with individual European countries.
Take the meeting with Rutte. The Chinese leader’s main interest was that the Netherlands, home to chipmaker ASML, a company that makes key equipment for microchip manufacturing, should not join any EU-U.S. trade coalition seeking to box China out of new technologies.
“It is hoped that the Netherlands would enhance Europe’s commitment to openness and cooperation,” Xi noted in a readout of the Dutch meeting. Translation: Don’t make trade trouble over microchips.
With Sánchez, Xi played up the importance of China as a motor for tourism in Spain, a sector where Madrid is particularly interested in high-rolling visitors from Asia. “The two sides need to make good preparations for the China-Spain Year of Culture and Tourism to build greater popular support for China-Spain friendship,” Xi said.
Similarly, the Xinhua state news agency quoted Macron saying he wanted more cooperation on business, specifically in the aviation and civil nuclear energy sectors. The Chinese account of the Xi-Meloni meeting was that Beijing would import more “high-quality” goods — presumably of the luxury and gourmet variety — and would cooperate in manufacturing, energy and aerospace.
Macron cozies up to Xi
In a sign that Xi’s diplomatic strategy was paying dividends, Macron took a non-confrontational approach to Xi, even massaging the Chinese leader’s ego.
The Chinese embassy to Paris promoted a video by TikTok’s domestic Chinese equivalent Douyin, in which Macron passed his best wishes to China after Xi secured a norm-breaking new mandate. (Xi was appointed for a third term as Communist Party general secretary in a highly choreographed party congress.)
Macron also hailed Xi as a “sincere” figure who should “play the role of a mediator over the next few months” in stopping further Russian aggression against Ukraine — even though Beijing has shown no sign of being a good fit for such a role since the war broke out in February.
Ignoring China’s deadly Himalayan tensions with India, escalating tension with Taiwan or military adventurism in the South China Sea, Macron declared: “China calls for peace … [There is] a deep and I know sincere attachment to … the U.N. charter.”
Macron also told reporters he planned to visit China early next year. That looks like a riposte to the visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who visited China earlier this month. Scholz reportedly rejected Paris’ suggestion for a joint Macron-Scholz visit and decided to go alone with a delegation of big businesses.
“Macron needed this air-time with Xi enormously as he couldn’t be seen to be left out by China when the Americans and the Germans have dominated the headlines,” a Western diplomat said.
While Macron claimed that Xi agreed with him on a “call for respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” China’s own readout made no such mention, saying only: “China stands for a ceasefire, cessation of the conflict and peace talks.”
Brussels boxed out
In stark contrast to the French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian leaders, the Brussels-based EU chiefs didn’t get a look-in.
In a show of Beijing’s continually negative view of the European Union, Xi decided not to go ahead with what POLITICO understood to be a near-certain plan for Michel, the one representing all 27 countries, to meet Xi.
That event, had it been allowed to take place, would have been significant in showcasing the possibility for the bloc’s smaller economies to also make their voice heard, since Xi would otherwise be busy dealing with the bigger players.
Xi’s change of heart over a meeting with Michel came shortly after the EU Council president’s prerecorded speech at a Shanghai trade expo was dropped.According to Reuters, he tried to call out Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in the speech, a message that was deemed too sensitive to Chinese ears.
In a thinly veiled criticism of China’s approach to the new Silk Road, von der Leyen said: “The [West’s] Partnership Global for Infrastructure and Investment is an important geostrategic initiative in era of strategic competition.
“Together with leading democracies we offer values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnerships for low- and middle-income countries,” she said.
Her tone, though, proved to be a minority among European leaders during the G20 engagement with China.
“There’s no common message from the EU on China,” according to another EU diplomat in Bali. “But then there never was one.”
To the relief of European diplomats, at least Xi did not handle their bosses in the same way he treated Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“Everything we discuss has been leaked to the paper; that’s not appropriate,” Xi told Trudeau through an interpreter in a clip recorded by Canadian media.
“That’s not … the way the conversation was conducted. If there is sincerity on your part …” Xi said, before Trudeau interrupted him, defending his country’s interest in working “constructively” with Beijing.
Xi took his turn to interrupt. “Let’s create the conditions first,” Xi said.
Elon Musk said on Friday he’s “just following the recommendation” of a Ukrainian diplomat who told the SpaceX founder to “fuck off,” by seeking to offload responsibility for funding his Starlink internet terminals in Ukraine.
Musk’s trolling came after Ukraine’s former Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk and the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted with hostility to Musk last week tweeting a series of Kremlin talking points, which he presented as a plan for peace in Russia’s war on Ukraine. This raised concerns in Kyiv and among its allies as to whether Musk was still on Ukraine’s side in the war.
Musk’s tweet came in response to a CNN report that SpaceX had warned in a letter, dated September 8 and sent to the U.S. Department of Defense, that it can no longer afford to provide its Starlink terminals, which are crucial for Ukraine’s military communication.
“We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX said in the letter, which was signed by the company’s director of government sales, adding that the Pentagon should take over the funding.
The Starlink satellite communication system has been crucial not only for Ukraine’s military communication, but also for the government to maintain contact with commanders, for Zelenskyy to conduct interviews with journalists, and for civilian communications, connecting loved ones via the encrypted satellites.
Funding the systems would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and the price tag could reach almost $400 million for the next 12 months, according to SpaceX.
Ukraine has received around 20,000 Starlink satellite units. Musk said last week that the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”
Musk was initially lauded for providing the Starlink terminals to Ukraine, but according to the SpaceX letter, the vast majority were partially or fully funded by other parties, including the U.S. government, the U.K. and Poland. Poland is the largest single contributor and has paid for almost 9,000 terminals, which cost $1,500 and $2,500 for the two models sent to Ukraine, according to the documents.
Those governments also paid for a third of the internet connectivity while SpaceX funded the rest, making up the more expensive part of the bill, according to SpaceX.
Among the documents seen by CNN is also a request from Ukrainian General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi to SpaceX for almost 8,000 more Starlink terminals. SpaceX reportedly responded by recommending the request be sent to the U.S. Department of Defense.
The spat comes shortly after recent reports of Starlink outages, which have disrupted crucial Ukrainian military communication on the front lines.
