The Clean Network: The Tech War's Winning Hand
Following years of uncoordinated U.S. government attempts to curb data security risks from foreign actors, the Clean Network was formed in May 2020. The initiative’s subsequent global campaign came in quick succession as U.S. Undersecretary of State to the Trump Administration, Keith Krach, was under pressure to stop Huawei—China’s prized technology giant—and its seemingly inevitable market domination of fifth-generation (5G) cellular network infrastructure. But what is the Clean Network, and why is it one of the largest accomplishments of recent U.S. politics?
Background
A few months prior to the initiative's formation, Huawei had announced 91 commercial 5G contracts globally, with 47 being in Europe. The lack of an end-to-end competitive product and other competitive advantages led many telecommunication firms to overlook the well-known risks of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) access to Huawei data and proclaim, "business is business." These cyber espionage risks include disrupting critical networks and accessing customer data and communications. Chinese National Intelligence Law enables these practices as firms—namely Huawei and ZTE—must "support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts." How would you feel if a Western adversary had access to data ranging from your text logs to top-government communications? While cyber espionage is undoubtedly not limited to China, there are many reasons why they are not internationally trusted. These reasons include the nation's authoritarian structure, direct state-vendor links, discovered security vulnerabilities, and past allegations. Clearly, Chinese 5G products are a significant national security issue for all corners of the world.
The initial acceptance and lack of risk mitigation strategies towards Huawei and ZTE from much of the West resulted in a range of risks adverse to democratic-world interests. This was especially problematic for security partnerships like the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance. NATO claims that its communications could be compromised through backdoor access points if one member used Huawei 5G servers.
The initial acceptance and lack of risk mitigation strategies towards Huawei and ZTE from much of the West resulted in a range of risks adverse to democratic-world interests. This was especially problematic for security partnerships like the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance. NATO claims that its communications could be compromised through backdoor access points if one member used Huawei 5G servers.
Ultimately, the several digital espionage risks from China and coinciding desire for Western countries to dominate the roll-out of 5G technology led to the launch of the Clean Network—a targeted initiative aimed at ensuring the security and integrity of global communications networks.
Measuring Success
The success of the Clean Network initiative was contingent on the speed and effectiveness of getting partner countries to adopt the framework. Upon formation in May 2020, Keith Krach immediately embarked on a global campaign to recruit partner nations and their telcos. While the tangible action surrounding the Clean Network was the blanket ban of Huawei and ZTE 5G products, the initiative led through its digital trust standard framework. The trust principles outlined 10 items, such as accountability and transparency, that combined resulted in the achievement of ‘trust’, a value proposition shared across the democratic world. Krach first targeted nations that had openly echoed the trust principles and excluded Huawei and ZTE vendors. This strategy leveraged Metcalfe’s Law, which states that the value of a network can grow exponentially and is represented by the nodes (partners) squared. Through the captured initial partners, the Clean Network campaign was then able to enter a ‘phase two’ of expansion. This led to the partnership of emerging markets, who despite sharing the values of the Clean Network, could not rationally pursue this strategy independently due to fear of Chinese retaliation. In August 2020, the Clean Network was expanded further and received this official name. Beyond creating clean telecommunication carriers, the initiative now worked towards shoring up adjacent technology threats. These further effort lines included Clean Stores, Apps, Cable, and Clouds—a direct challenge to Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent (WeChat), and Byte Dance (TikTok).
Finally, after months-long campaigning, Krach and the Clean Network made achievements toward their Clean Carrier goal by toppling Huawei’s commercial pipeline. To date, a staggering 60 countries and 180 telcos have signed on, representing two-thirds of the world's GDP. Not many other democratic initiatives in history have achieved measurable results at this speed, not to mention the hard-found success of a current-day U.S. bipartisan effort. Despite its many successes, there are also notable concerns about whether the Clean Network was executed in a truly ‘democratic’ manner.
Political Impurities
One of the U.S.'s key democratic values is individualism and, subsequently, laissez-faire economic policies. Through the development of the Clean Network initiative, this core value has been tested in an effort to capture freedom over authoritarianism. Also, the push to remove the competition of Huawei and ZTE 5G infrastructure from the home and global market goes against free-market capitalism. South Korea represents a democratic country that has maintained their integrity towards these principles. While two of its three biggest telcos are partners of the Clean Network, the country itself is not a member. Commenting on South Korea’s decision to not pursue membership, a government official stated, "whether a private telecom company uses the equipment of a specific enterprise is up to that company to decide."
Further, Clean Network critics point out that for each of the initiatives five lines of effort, the U.S. has carried out their own cyber espionage programs, both at home and abroad. For example, the U.S. PRISM program, allowed security agencies to collect and analyze internet communications via the largest internet companies to identify individuals both domestic and abroad that could pose a threat to national security. The program resulted in public outcry, with U.S. citizens successfully calling on the government for increased transparency and warrants on domestic data collection. The program was also defended on many grounds, such as, targeted collection methods, minimization procedures, and of course, national security threats.
Similarly, many acknowledge that the actions of the Clean Network are democratically defensible as digital espionage risks fall under the national security banner. Regardless of the two schools of thought, plenty of adjacent actions led by the U.S. have been taken against China in recent years, with an overarching purpose of protecting the leading superpower from competition in future technologies as a whole.
The Greater Technology War
As a ban on 'untrusted' 5G vendors, the Clean Network's success tells us that China is likely to continue to encounter issues when introducing advanced technologies into the global market. In fact, the U.S. has targeted China for other competitive reasons surpassing data security risks. The overarching economic competition between the U.S. and China is towards who will win the fourth industrial revolution. This is the next boom of technology innovation surrounding industries such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous driving. The winner of this technology race would carry global influence and solidify themselves as the #1 superpower.
The application of 5G technology surpasses more than just the next fastest personal device speed. It provides connectivity that is foundational for an array of advanced technological products. This fact highlights the importance of the Clean Network. However, semiconductors remain the most important advanced technology enablement and make up the largest slice in the technology war. The first major development began during the U.S.-China trade wars of 2018-2019, where the U.S. and China placed a total of $550B and $185B in tariffs against each other's goods, respectively. The backbone of the trade war was U.S. pressure for China to remove its 'unfair trade practices', including forced technology transfers via joint ventures and, of course, intellectual property theft. While the trade war cooled down in 2020, the U.S. has since dealt more competitive blows to China—specifically targeting China’s semiconductor access while strengthening their own position. This can be seen through four key moves over the past couple of years:
The 2020 onshoring of TSMC—A Taiwanese company that is the largest supplier of advanced semiconductors globally—via a $12B investment in an Arizona plant that has since seen investments triple
The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework—a direct response to a similar Chinese-led Asia-Pacific region trade agreement—comprising of 14 partner nations and leading with digital trade standards
The U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, which will invest $52.7B into semiconductor research and development
The October 2022 U.S. mandated license obtainment, placing heavy restrictions on domestic companies exporting semiconductors to China because of their use in military applications—a striking move for China’s advanced military goals due to U.S. import dependance
While China is still in the game to win the fourth industrial revolution, the U.S. has significantly hindered its ability to source advanced semiconductors. Further, the Clean Network has established digital trust standards that much of the democratic world abides by. Frankly, it is more important to this overall story than discussed in the media. While the public focus is on semiconductor competition, the Clean Network’s early success and future scalability demonstrate why it could be a secret ace up the sleeve for the U.S.’s winning hand in the technology war. Only time will tell how far-reaching the Clean Network and other efforts go. However, one thing is certain—the story is not over.