we Believe our most powerful allies, the face of an Invasion – is the most populous Nation of the earth attack on the offensive after global domination. Not with cannons and columns, however, China move, spread, the Trump-government and Berlin’s Ambassador Richard Grenell. It attack by means of beige and grey boxes, which wants to plant the electronics group Huawei on German roofs.

the new mobile radio standard 5G. Such transmission facilities, expected to bring cheap, ultra fast Internet, securing Germany’s digital future, allow for intelligent mobility and Autonomous Driving. Good for Germany and good for China, its largest trading partner.

Who is Huawei?

The reading of the United States: the Beijing want you to eavesdrop, perhaps even sabotage. Huawei was a potential servant of the Communist party and their monitoring state.

The conflict with Washington, which splits the Federal government and the Parliament, and this week the EU summit is not created overnight: Already in 2012, it became public that US intelligence services had the group in sight, at the time, only industry experts was a term. One in a Huawei Router discovered security flaw could be a backdoor for spies, feared the FBI was a Cold war for power broke loose.

Now, as the Trump of government in open economic warfare with China, the conflict hot. Since December, the daughter of the company will be held on founder and financial Manager of Huawei in Canada on suspicion of violating Iran sanctions. Washington is pushing for their extradition. And demands of its allies to ban Huawei from your future networks. Otherwise, it has written to the Ambassador of Grenell’s economic Minister, Peter Altmaier, could you put the secret service in cooperation with Berlin.

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Shenzhen is the showcase of the Chinese Tech economic miracle

©Malte Mansholt/star

And the Chinese? You are outraged and point to the fact that the FBI was investigation inconclusive. In 2014, the Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the United States Huawei systematically spied on.

But who is Huawei? The company, with us, the General public, especially through Smartphones with a Leica camera, would like to show a friendly face. The star is followed Huawei’s invitation to visit the company at its birthplace and headquarters in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

bitterness

Prior to the densely wooded mountains of the house ranks high on the high house. Estimated 23 million people to live here, attracted by the laboratories, factories and offices of the Tech industry. On the market of the metropolis, you can buy ready-to-use micro-chips on rolls of film, and Computer circuit boards with bags.

Here you can feel the bitterness about the attacks from Washington: “The USA has been pursuing a smear campaign without evidence”, is wroth with recently, the Supervisory Board Chairman Guo Ping. Huawei has been sued in the United States against the government, which has banned the use of its technology in government agencies. The US investigators remain before the court the evidence for your accusations guilty, the Chinese calculus, get the acquittal, even if the lawsuit against the ban is rejected. And such evidence it is not, says chief lawyer Song Liuping: “We have never been asked by a government – also by the Chinese, a backdoor in our products. And we would not comply with such a request.” Skeptics, however, such as a majority in the European Parliament or the CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen, are convinced that Huawei could not escape in case of doubt, the desires of the state, the party or the army. Share the American concerns.

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Huawei’s production is extremely automated, the people you are monitoring only

©Kin Cheung/AP

the technique to do it? On a rooftop in Shenzhen, you can take a closer look: With eight inconspicuous antenna masts Huawei tests, together with the Provider China Mobile is the future. Up to 1.5 Gigabit-per-second the Installation by means 5G transmits to a specially equipped minibus for the average German user is in need of several days. During the bus ride, the guest ultra high-resolution TV broadcasts stutter-free viewing.

And the Vision goes further. From the street light and household equipment, from individual components to large machinery soon number to communicate things by means of the tiny 5G transmitters. Waste bins are to report when the garbage collection has to come. Machines order their own spare parts.

safety concerns

No industrial nation wants to be at 5G depend. In Germany has started this week, the state auction of the necessary frequency licenses. But the danger is growing, to be spied or even hacker attacks paralyzed, it should give malicious access to the immense flood of data from 5G. It’s less private Whatsapp Chats as a huge potential for industrial espionage.

For Huawei are doubts as to its trustworthiness threat: core business and Proud of the company’s network technology was always. After the German mobile operator of its Chinese suppliers had long kept the faith, has become the tone now cautious. “Deutsche Telekom is taking the global discussion on the safety of the network elements of Chinese manufacturers very seriously,” according to the Bonn group, the radio in the U.S. has more mobile customers than in the whole of Europe. You’ve set in the past, the technology of different manufacturers besides Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, and Cisco, “however, we currently assess our sourcing strategy”.

O2 operator Telefonica is also no solidarity address: “We are watching the discussion very carefully, we are not involved in the current speculation.” And also in the case of Telefónica, it is emphasized that Huawei is only one of several suppliers.

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In the Showroom, shows the group is fond of his technology for the smart city

©Kin Cheung/AP

Only Vodafone, for a Long time Huawei-a regular customer, decided to be faithful to Continuous controls would result in a “no safety concerns or evidence of abuse of the network by Huawei”.

In Shenzhen, one is transparency efforts, Huawei wants to show how great security will be written. So you have a Team of hackers to attack the company’s own products, to find vulnerabilities and gaps in security. Their chief, John Suffolk will report directly to the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, in the case of serious product Suffolk Veto could to defects in the Marktstart stop, says Huawei.

No evidence of espionage-mechanisms

Zhengfei Ren, however, this is not a recurring motif of the Huawei-criticism, to be far removed from the Chinese state from biographical reasons, for sure. He served in the army and the party is a member; the group is not traded on the stock exchange, always the talk of hidden state holdings. Ren Zhengfei denies that, besides him, only Huawei employees had shares.

The group is considered to be one of the most innovative in the industry: Of the nearly 180,000 employees, about 80,000 work in the development. Long ago, Huawei is driving the phone-in competition for the camera and battery technology. With the Mate X, one has just introduced a Smartphone, to the Tablet fold. Huawei’s technology is similar to Samsung Fold as superior.

For the US this is a new experience. For decades the claim was to be all over the world, serious competition came, at best, about close allies, from South Korea.

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The screen shows the data flows fully with wireless technology to underserved metropolis

©Malte Mansholt/star

Linus Neumann, a security expert at the alike group – such as government-critical Chaos Computer club, and it is therefore assumed that economic motives play a major role in the recent escalation: “Our mobile networks are already today, up to 30 percent of Huawei Equipment. There is no evidence that it was very insecure as the Equipment of other manufacturers – generally, it looks in the field.” Striking is that there is still no evidence of spying mechanisms in Huawei technology were presented.

Neumann’s Position is not far removed from that of the Federal Association of German industry, its boss Dieter Kempf demands of legal certainty – for example, in the Form of uniform European Standards, which would then apply to all network technology suppliers alike. “If there is a suspicion of espionage or Manipulation, you must consider the competent Authorities of the allegations, of course, in great detail,” says Kempf.

Global Player

a however, there is no doubt that Huawei will occur on the offensive as a global Player, the company reaches out to markets all over the world. In the meantime, it has rebuilt it already once – at the enterprise campus at Songshan lake.

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Huawei’s new Campus has a very traditional – he is an Imitation of European architecture

©Jun Yasukawa/DPA

Suddenly you are standing in Heidelberg, descended from a Swiss mountain railway. While the old Campus could be, with its chic, but simple office buildings in the Silicon Valley, the new a tribute to Europe. The good quarter of an hour journey, the train passes through Verona, Oxford, Bruges, and Granada – and, finally, to the Neckar. Between the neatly mowed meadows of Heidelberg stands the castle.

While walking through the old town of Heidelberg is quickly forget that you are in China. Only the tourists are missing, it could be a possibly the split-Heidelberg-love Americans and the Chinese. If you wanted, once declared, the group of Shenzhen, with the sights, the wisdom and restraint of the European continent honor for the time being.