The secrets of TikTok and Huawei being hunted are all in this analysis report! Fudan University fully reveals the secrets

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On August 5, the US State Department announced that it would expand the "Clean Network Initiative" to protect US assets and security, covering five areas: operators and their equipment, application stores, applications, cloud infrastructure and submarine cables. What is of great concern is that in the fields of applications, network clouds and cable systems, Chinese companies including Huawei and BAT have become targets.

Some analysts believe that each project in the plan is directly aimed at Chinese companies and is designed to target China. In a nutshell, it is to draw a clear line with China in the Internet field and make it completely "clean."

Recently, Fudan University released an analysis report entitled "Clean Network Initiative and US Digital Hegemony" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). The report analyzes the US Clean Network Initiative and points out the harm that US digital hegemony has brought to related international industries.

1. The Essence of the US Clean Network Program

The US Clean Network Plan is an industry-based strategy based on the country's subjective strategy and needs. This judgment is not an objective judgment of the technology itself, but the identity of the source of the technology as the main judgment criterion. This subjective and ideologically biased approach violates the laws of the industry and will seriously disrupt the global industrial chain.

In essence, the Clean Network Initiative is a key measure for the United States to maintain its digital hegemony. It is a non-tariff barrier set up in the information industry on the grounds of supply chain security, with the ultimate goal of maintaining the United States' digital hegemony.

It should be pointed out that the Clean Network Initiative is a precision strike strategy proposed by the United States based on its long-term research and in-depth analysis of China's Internet industry. It is an abnormal measure taken against the backdrop of China's Internet industry challenging the U.S. digital hegemony. Its core feature is to try to subvert the reconstruction of the rules, forcing all parties to re-align themselves based on non-technical factors such as ideology, and thereby distorting and disrupting the normal order of the global market.

Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE are not the first victims. Before them, Japan's Toshiba, France's Alstom and Airbus, etc., regardless of the relationship between their home countries and the United States, have all suffered bullying and suppression from the United States because of their success in related industries.

The US's formulation of the Clean Network Plan to suppress Chinese companies including Huawei is a natural continuation of US hegemony. As the strategic competition between China and the US intensifies, China has become the target of the US. In the future, if other countries have similar strategic competition with the US, the US is likely to take the same measures against other countries; even in some extreme cases, if such behavior patterns are not effectively corrected and then gain some kind of de facto normalization, even if there is no strategic competition, as long as the US is not satisfied with the benefits it has gained in related industries, it can use similar methods to obtain additional benefits through pressure.

2. US economic hegemony and digital hegemony

According to the US's vision, the most ideal way to achieve digital hegemony is to unite with allies to gain control over the network at the bottom level, and then infiltrate various countries through the provision of Internet services by US high-tech companies, control data in the cloud, and finally form a collaborative platform through the mastered data and intelligence network to achieve digital hegemony and serve its own national interests. The US digital hegemony is based on its economic hegemony. The two world wars helped the US achieve its economic hegemony, and it has been maintained to this day.

1. The United States established its economic hegemony through two world wars

During World War I, as a non-belligerent country, the United States quickly accumulated a lot of wealth by selling arms.

During the war, the government's suspension of antitrust actions, promotion of scientific research, and encouragement of arms sales indirectly laid the foundation for the emergence of emerging technology industries after the war.

At the end of World War I, the United States had leapt from being heavily in debt to becoming a creditor of various countries, from a capital importing country to a capital exporting country, and from a debtor country to a creditor country.

In 1920, the United States began to enter the mid-stage of industrialization, which was also a major turning point when the United States officially replaced Britain and became the new world hegemon. The Second World War that broke out from 1939 to 1945 brought another opportunity for economic growth to the United States. The impact of this war on the growth of American wealth was unprecedented in depth and scope.

At the end of World War II, the US GDP was 10 times that of the UK, and its gold reserves were US$20 billion, almost two-thirds of the world's total at the time (about US$33 billion).

It was also during this period that the United States provided more than $50 billion worth of goods and services to its allies under the Lend-Lease Act. Gold continued to flow into the United States, and its gold reserves increased from $14.51 billion in 1938 to $20.08 billion in 1945, accounting for about 59% of the world's gold reserves.

The international status of the US dollar is unprecedentedly stable due to its huge international gold reserves, which enables the United States to establish an international monetary system based on the US dollar, which is conducive to the United States' external economic expansion.

On December 27, 1945, representatives from more than 20 countries participating in the Bretton Woods Conference signed the Bretton Woods Agreement, formally establishing the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. From then on, a new era in the history of the development of the international monetary system began.

The Bretton Woods system was based on gold, with the U.S. dollar as the main international reserve currency. The U.S. dollar was directly linked to gold, and the currencies of various countries were linked to the U.S. dollar, and could be exchanged for gold from the United States at the official price of $35 per ounce. It made the U.S. dollar central in the post-war international monetary system. From then on, the U.S. dollar became the means of payment for international settlements and the main reserve currency of various countries.

As World War II was coming to an end, the United States began to establish international mechanisms in various fields to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of British hegemony and build its own hegemony system.

In the economic field, the United States took the lead in establishing international mechanisms such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, later the World Trade Organization (WTO)) to control and manage the world economy and create a liberal international economic order.

From 1945 to 1969, the United States reached the pinnacle of the capitalist world. A new scientific and technological revolution marked by the development of atomic energy technology, aerospace technology, and electronic computer technology emerged in the United States, promoting the highly modernized development of the American economy.

In addition, the United States' modern corporate organizations, national and international monopoly organizations have achieved new developments, and multinational corporations have also risen rapidly. Thanks to the above conditions, the United States has become a highly modernized superpower and has begun to transform into a post-industrial society and an information society.

The third industrial revolution, represented by nuclear energy, computers and space technology, is driving the transfer of the global supply chain, making the United States the core of the global supply chain.

2. The establishment of US digital hegemony is based on economic hegemony

The United States’ economic hegemony has facilitated the establishment of its digital hegemony.

In the third scientific and technological revolution after World War II, the United States has a monopoly in resource allocation, technical standards, content generation, etc. Its dominance over network resource allocation and key links in the industrial chain constitutes the foundation of its digital hegemony.

At present, every key link in the global Internet industry chain, including operating systems, chip design, software, etc., is basically dominated by the United States. With its dominance in the key links of the network industry chain, the United States has an absolute advantage in cyberspace, which enables the United States to carry out unrestrained large-scale eavesdropping and monitoring around the world to achieve its own digital hegemony.

In addition, the United States also controls the communications sector by establishing globally accepted Internet technology standards.

Finally, the United States legitimizes its hegemony policy by formulating international rules for cyberspace. From the Obama administration to the Trump administration, the United States has continuously improved the status of the Internet in national security and introduced a series of cyberspace strategies to consolidate its dominance in cyberspace and maintain its cyber hegemony.

The Clean Network Initiative is in line with a series of U.S. national cyberspace strategies. It is an effort by the United States in the new era to use national power to enforce its global digital hegemony. It is the embodiment of the U.S. cyber hegemony strategy in the digital industry.

After the end of the Cold War, the United States, on the one hand, relied on its superior military capabilities to consolidate its hegemony in the political and security fields; on the other hand, with the deepening of globalization, the United States mainly relied on finance, technology and legal systems to maintain its hegemonic position in the economic field.

3. The United States is accustomed to maintaining its economic hegemony by suppressing competitive enterprises

Due to the objective laws of economic development and technological progress, there will always be other countries, including the United States’ allies (Japan and major Western European countries in the 1980s and 1990s), and their representative multinational companies competing with the United States in the international market, and even threatening the United States’ dominant position. The United States will severely suppress these competitors through financial, technological and legal means.

In terms of finance, it mainly uses the dominant position of the US dollar hegemony to implement unique financial sanctions, put relevant companies on the sanctions list, and force them to be unable to use US dollars for transaction settlement;

Technical aspects include export control bans and cutting off the lifeline of enterprises by cutting or restructuring the supply chain;

In terms of law, the United States initially relied on the international multilateral system represented by the WTO. However, as other countries became stronger and gained a deeper understanding of WTO laws and procedures, the United States began to believe that the international system was inefficient. However, the essential problem is that with the rise of other countries, the United States gradually lost its de facto effective control over the international multilateral platform. Therefore, the United States began to retreat to bilateral and unilateral frameworks, frequently using domestic legal procedures including 301 investigations, and using different combinations of various policy tools such as long-arm jurisdiction and entity lists to "weaponize compliance issues" and "politicize trade and technology issues." It eventually developed a habitual "securityization" approach, which is to artificially construct all the above-mentioned issues into so-called national security issues, and then adopt a more subjective and arbitrary approach to maintain the United States' hegemonic position.

1. Using the financial hegemony tool represented by the US dollar payment system as the core to sanction and suppress relevant companies

Unilateral financial sanctions are one of the most powerful weapons of the United States. The reason why such sanctions are directly mandatory is mainly due to the core position of the US dollar in global commodity and capital transactions. Its specific implementation path is through the US dollar cross-border fund clearing system and cross-border financial infrastructure, mainly the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).

SWIFT was founded in 1937 and currently provides secure messaging services and interface software to more than 11,000 institutions in more than 200 countries and regions around the world. As an important part of the international clearing system dominated by the US dollar, any individual, corporate organization or country that conducts extensive business transactions around the world cannot avoid SWIFT. In addition, the United States can also use the financial transaction network formed by SWIFT to accurately identify sanctions targets and formulate sanctions measures through relevant financial data, and implement dynamic supervision to ensure the effectiveness of sanctions.

Take the US sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 project as an example.

"Nord Stream 2" is a natural gas cooperation project between Russia and the European Union. Its goal is to provide 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas to EU countries annually through the Baltic Sea and Germany.

In January 2019, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Grenell warned German companies, saying: "Nord Stream 2 will reduce Ukraine's security and political status, leading to an increased risk of Russian intervention in the Ukrainian conflict. In addition, the EU will become dependent on Russia's energy security. All companies involved in related projects must understand the associated corporate reputation losses and possible sanctions."

In order to allay Ukraine's concerns, Russia, the EU and Ukraine held negotiations on natural gas issues at the EU headquarters in Brussels and reached an agreement on December 19, 2019. However, the next day, US President Trump signed and passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, imposing sanctions on the construction parties involved in the Nord Stream 2 project, but this move by the United States was strongly opposed by Germany.

Because the United States hopes to export liquefied natural gas to Europe, if the Nord Stream 2 project is implemented smoothly, the U.S. liquefied natural gas market in Europe will be replaced by Russia, the U.S. economic interests will be damaged, and the U.S. voice in European affairs will be reduced.

2. Paralyze or even cut off the supply chain through export control bans to exert extreme pressure on companies

Issuing export control bans to paralyze or even cut off the supply chain and thereby exert extreme pressure on target companies is the second common means by which the United States maintains its economic hegemony.

During the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II, in order to prevent the Soviet camp from developing high-end weapons, at the suggestion of the United States, 17 countries including the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Australia established the Paris Coordinating Committee (abbreviated as "CoCom") in Paris in November 1949 to restrict member countries from exporting strategic materials and high technologies to socialist countries.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Batumi was officially dissolved on April 1, 1994. Two years later, the Wassenaar Arrangement, led by the United States, was signed in Vienna, Austria, inheriting the embargo policy of Batumi. The agreement has become an important means for the United States to contain and suppress the development of high-tech industries in hostile countries. The method of paralyzing or even cutting off the supply chain through export control bans is often used when companies in other countries threaten the United States' technological leadership.

Typical cases are Japan's "Toshiba incident" and Europe's "Airbus wiretapping case".

The United States and Japan were competing fiercely in the field of high-tech in the 1980s. In 1987, Toshiba Machine, a subsidiary of the Toshiba Group, was revealed to have secretly exported CNC machine tools that reduced submarine noise to the Soviet Union. Subsequently, the United States launched an investigation into Toshiba Machine and imposed economic sanctions on Japan.

In 1985, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) filed a lawsuit with the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) regarding dumping by Japanese semiconductor companies, which led to the United States launching a 301 investigation into Japanese electronic products.

In 1986, the United States and Japan signed the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement, which required Japan to curb its dumping practices, restrict Japanese semiconductor exports to the United States, and encourage Japan to increase its market share of U.S. semiconductor products to 20%.

In 1991, the first five-year "U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement" expired, and the U.S. and Japan signed a second five-year agreement, further expanding the market share of U.S. semiconductor products in Japan. After that, U.S. semiconductor companies gradually recovered their market competitiveness and surpassed the global market share of Japanese semiconductor companies in the mid-1990s.

On the surface, the "Toshiba incident" was a trade friction between the United States and Japan caused by violating the Batumi export control rules, but Japan's Toshiba Machine Company was not the only party to the transaction. The Norwegian state-owned military enterprise Kongsberg was also involved. The two companies jointly completed the export of CNC machine tools to the Soviet Union. The cooperation between the two sides made this issue of export control violation a multi-national trade issue, but the United States pointed the finger at Toshiba Machine Company. This shows that the United States' intention is not only to maintain the Batumi embargo agreement, but also to maintain its leading position in the high-tech industry.

As a core strategic industry, the semiconductor industry is an important indicator for measuring a country's technological leadership.

In the 1970s, the US semiconductor industry had absolute dominance worldwide, accounting for 60% of the world market. At that time, Japan's semiconductor industry lagged far behind the United States, with a world market share of about 15%.

After entering the 1980s, Japan's semiconductor industry developed rapidly. By 1982, it had occupied 35% of the world market share, threatening the United States' dominance in the semiconductor industry.

A 1983 report by the U.S. Department of Commerce pointed out that among the five major high-tech fields, the United States currently only maintains a leading position in aircraft manufacturing and aerospace technology, while lagging behind Japan in semiconductor technology, optical fiber technology, and intelligent mechanical technology.

The rapid development of Japan's semiconductor industry in the 1980s challenged the U.S. leadership in advanced technology. As a result, Japan was investigated and sanctioned by the U.S. and was forced to sign a semiconductor agreement with the U.S., on the one hand reducing semiconductor exports to the U.S. and on the other hand ensuring the market share of U.S. semiconductor companies in Japan.

Behind these actions lies the United States's protection of its own economic hegemony. Especially when faced with the relative decline of its own technological advantages, the United States has restricted the export of Japanese electronic products and the development of the semiconductor industry through methods such as imposing tariffs and signing agreements.

The timeline of the US trade investigation and economic sanctions against Japan in response to the "Toshiba incident" coincides with the timeline of the rise of Japan's semiconductor industry, which gives us a glimpse of the US's true intentions behind the "Toshiba incident". It should be pointed out that the way the US suppressed Japan's semiconductor industry was to destroy its finished product manufacturing capabilities (at that time, finished products represented by memory sticks), and then force Japan to move to the upper end of the accessory manufacturing industry and produce accessories such as photoresist.

This movement seems to be accompanied by technological progress, but at the national level it means that the status of Japan and Japanese-related companies in the global industrial system has been greatly marginalized and they have lost their autonomy. They can only play a substantial role when cooperating with the US industrial chain blockade or exclusion strategy. Otherwise, they can only play a limited role in the limited dispute between Japan and South Korea.

3. Using domestic legal procedures, long-arm jurisdiction and entity lists to suppress companies

The third method the United States often uses to maintain its economic hegemony is to suppress companies through its domestic legal procedures, long-arm jurisdiction and entity lists. Since the 1980s, this suppression has mainly been directed at Japanese and European companies.

The Japanese computer industry rose rapidly in the 1970s, threatening the original dominance of the United States. In 1982, an informant of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) falsely claimed to have the latest IBM computer technology and used fishing enforcement tactics to induce employees of Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric to pay for it. After the two companies obtained the relevant drawings, the FBI quickly arrested six "commercial spies" and issued a warrant for the arrest of 12 Japanese employees. Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric had to sign a technology royalties payment contract with IBM. In 1983 alone, Hitachi paid about 10 billion yen.

Over the past decade or so, under the guise of combating overseas corruption and sanctions violations, the U.S. Department of Justice has successfully struck or even dismantled a number of large European multinational corporations by prosecuting executives of European high-tech companies and issuing high fines to the companies.

According to statistics, between 1977 and 2014, 30% (474) of the investigations involving the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act were conducted against non-US companies, but the fines they paid accounted for 67% of the total; among the 26 companies fined by the United States for more than US$100 million, only 5 were US companies, and 14 of the 21 non-US companies were European companies.

So far, among all the top ten companies punished, none is a US company.

4. The United States insists on using traditional financial, technological and legal means to maintain its digital hegemony

1. Suppressing the development of foreign companies by weaponizing compliance

As the first Chinese social product that has truly won the favor of foreign users, TikTok has had 500 million monthly active users worldwide since 2018, becoming the most downloaded application on Apple's App Store.

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However, since 2019, the United States has exaggerated the security threats posed by TikTok, putting it in a difficult position around the world. The United States first accused TikTok's parent company ByteDance of sharing data with the Chinese government, and then claimed that TikTok suppressed speech through content censorship. In addition, the United States has been seeking to weaponize compliance issues to deal with TikTok's rise around the world.

The weaponization here means starting from the technical level, examining TikTok on seemingly technical and procedural details such as the collection of personal privacy information, cross-border data transmission, content review mechanism, and relationship with the Chinese government . After discovering that TikTok has resolved these technical issues one by one in terms of form, procedure, and operation, it directly uses the "pocket" of "suspected threat to national security" to carry out extreme pressure actions in a way that does not allow TikTok to respond or defend itself:

First, a security review of TikTok was conducted, and then a download ban on TikTok was issued in federal agencies. Finally, the United States directly required American capital to forcibly acquire TikTok through an executive order.

2. Targeted suppression of enterprises through technology control, export bans, etc.

The use of technology controls, export bans and other means to precisely suppress companies has been typified by the DJI and Huawei cases.

In August 2018, Trump signed the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. Section 889 of the act prohibits all U.S. government agencies from purchasing equipment and services from Huawei.

Subsequently, the U.S. escalated its crackdown on Huawei, listing Huawei on the Commerce Department's "Entity List" and prohibiting U.S. companies from selling chips to Huawei.

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On May 15, 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it would protect U.S. national security by restricting Huawei's ability to use U.S. technology and software to design and manufacture its semiconductors abroad.

Under the export rule change, foreign companies that use U.S. chipmaking equipment will be required to obtain a U.S. license before supplying certain chips to Huawei or its affiliates such as HiSilicon.

On August 17, 2020, the United States further tightened restrictions on Huawei, prohibiting suppliers from selling chips made with US technology to Huawei without special permission, plugging potential loopholes in the sanctions introduced in May that allowed Huawei to obtain relevant technology through third parties.

On the one hand, the United States hopes to stop Huawei's technological development by cutting off supplies; on the other hand, it tries to prevent other countries from purchasing Huawei's 5G equipment.

According to a BCG report, trade tensions between China and the United States may lead to a decoupling of the semiconductor technology industries of the two countries, and a 37% drop in U.S. semiconductor revenue, which is equivalent to a reduction of $83 billion if calculated based on 2018 revenue. About three-quarters of the impact will be a direct consequence of Chinese customers having to replace U.S. semiconductors due to the U.S. technology export ban.

3. Using the ability to rewrite international rules to squeeze out the legitimate interests of allies

On December 10, 2019, the United States, Mexico, and Canada signed the revised United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and officially came into effect on July 1, 2020.

Since 2017, the US government has repeatedly criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement for causing the loss of US manufacturing, and has demanded renegotiation on the grounds of withdrawing from the agreement. Therefore, the revised USMCA is regarded as one of the major achievements of President Trump's administration, and is even touted by the US government as "the highest standard trade agreement in the 21st century."

The agreement not only expands the scope of cross-border data flow and increases the mandatory and binding force of prohibiting the localization of personal data, but also extends this restriction to the financial field, making it easier for US financial regulators to obtain financial data from Mexico and Canada by fulfilling their regulatory responsibilities.

5. The Clean Network Initiative is an important attempt by the United States to achieve digital hegemony under the new circumstances

On April 29, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo announced that the U.S. State Department will begin to require the implementation of the 5G Clean Path Plan for all 5G network traffic in and out of U.S. diplomatic facilities, requiring that all IT vendors (including ZTE and Huawei) deemed "untrusted" be prohibited from accessing the 5G networks of any country or operator through transmission, control, computing or storage equipment. The plan is incorporated into the Clean Network plan launched in June 2020.

Subsequently, the United States updated the Clean Network Initiative on August 5, 2020, and launched five new initiatives based on the 5G Clean Path Initiative to protect the United States' critical telecommunications and technology infrastructure.

At this point, the "Clean Network" plan basically covers the entire supply chain ecological closed loop, aiming to prevent so-called Chinese Internet companies from subverting the Internet world dominated by the United States and ultimately maintain the United States' digital hegemony.

1. The Clean Network Initiative is essentially a non-tariff barrier set up on the grounds of supply chain security.

The "Clean Network" plan claims to exclude Chinese information industry products and services in all aspects, including telecommunications services, program stores, application software, cloud services, cables and 5G.

That is, as long as it is not a Chinese supplier, it is "clean", and as long as it is something that the United States does not like, it is "unclean". However, the United States' judgment on the so-called "clean" is not an objective judgment of the technology, but the identity of the source of the technology is used as the main judgment standard. Therefore, the Clean Network Plan can be regarded as the United States' precise suppression of China's network industry from the perspective of the entire supply chain. In essence, it is a non-tariff barrier set up on the grounds of supply chain security.

2. The Clean Network Initiative constitutes a complete policy toolbox for the United States to achieve its digital hegemony

The "Clean Network" plan basically covers the entire supply chain ecological closed loop. It is a precision strike strategy proposed by the United States based on long-term research and in-depth analysis of China's network industry. It can be seen as a toolbox for achieving its digital hegemony. The United States uses national power to take unilateral actions to contain Chinese companies in order to prevent Chinese Internet companies from subverting the Internet world dominated by the United States. The ultimate goal is still to maintain the United States' digital hegemony.

3. The Clean Network Initiative will undermine the digital sovereignty of other countries and hinder industry development

The Clean Network Initiative will undermine the digital sovereignty of other countries in the process of achieving US digital hegemony.

First, every country has the freedom to independently choose its own trusted suppliers and trusted services, and the Clean Network Initiative will deprive relevant countries of this freedom.

Secondly, through the Clean Network Initiative, the United States has brought telecom operators, mobile applications, mobile app stores, cloud services, cables, and 5G suppliers under its control. This generalized regulation will infringe on the autonomy of various countries in network operations and supervision.

Finally, as data is an important national asset, it is necessary to strengthen local storage and local business supervision. The United States’ introduction of the “Cloud Act” to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over data will seriously undermine the data autonomy of relevant countries.

VI. Recommendations for mitigating risks in the Clean Network Initiative

As a non-tariff barrier set up on the grounds of supply chain security, the Clean Network Initiative violates the objective laws of industrial development, will damage the digital sovereignty of other countries, and hinder the development of the industry. Therefore, the international community should unite to create a fair competition environment for the industry, formulate objective and fair standards, and take effective measures to build trust and resolve the risks brought by the Clean Network Initiative.

1. Maintain an open market, create a fair competitive environment for ICT suppliers, and avoid setting up trade barriers

In response to the US's practice of listing Chinese companies on the "Entity List" on the grounds of national security, on May 31, 2019, China's Ministry of Commerce announced that it would establish an "Unreliable Entity List" system to counter US companies, associations and other entities.

European countries should maintain an open market, create a fair competitive environment for Chinese ICT suppliers, and avoid setting up non-tariff barriers on the grounds of national security. Only in this way can we achieve win-win results in economic exchanges with China and avoid China's countermeasures due to discriminatory treatment of Chinese companies.

2. Establish procurement practices and guidelines based on international standards and methods

The international community should work together to develop neutral and non-discriminatory international standards based on technology, establish procurement practices and guidelines based on objective standards and requirements that clearly inform risks and are highly transparent, oppose discriminatory standards based on subjective judgment and self-centeredness, and obtain the most cost-effective global resources for their own countries in the development of the information industry represented by 5G construction, so as to maximize their own interests.

3. Establish global ICT supply chain security standards and take effective measures to build trust

The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) published the report “Supply Chain Integrity - Overview of ICT Supply Chain Risks and Challenges, and Future Vision” in 2012 and updated it in 2015. In addition to providing practical practices that can be used as a reference for participants in the ICT supply chain, the report also recommends public-private partnerships to establish an international assessment framework to effectively evaluate ICT supply chain risk management.

In the International Code of Conduct for Information Security submitted to the United Nations twice in 2011 and 2015, China, Russia and other countries also put forward specific initiatives to ensure the security of the ICT supply chain, emphasizing that "efforts should be made to ensure the security of the supply chain of information technology products and services, and to prevent other countries from using their own resources, key facilities, core technologies, information and communication technology products and services, information and communication networks and other advantages to weaken the independent control of countries that accept the above code of conduct over information and communication technology products and services, or threaten their political, economic and social security."

These are all good practices that will help build trust between countries and between companies and customers, and promote the healthy development of the industry.