Taking control of 5G through “what seemed to be commercial companies like Huawei and ZTE” is a long-term Chinese strategy to assert its hegemony over Asia, former American National Security Advisor John Bolton said. To combat China’s global dominance, the rest of the world would have to “think strategically in response”, he said in an interview with CNN-News18. India may want to look at participating in global consultations about that, as it already has in a trilateral consultation with Japan and the US, Bolton said. Bolton further said that China has not behaved responsibly in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and continues to steal intellectual property. He is not the only American to accuse China of intellectual property theft. Earlier, White House adviser Peter Navarro had said that TikTok and other apps developed by Chinese-owned companies are obligated to share information with the Communist Party of China and “agencies which want to steal our intellectual property”. This is not the first time that Bolton has raised doubts about Huawei and ZTE’s links with the Chinese government. In an excerpt from his book The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, he had written, “The most important goal for Chinese ‘companies’ like Huawei and ZTE is to infiltrate telecommunications and information-technology systems, notably 5G, and subject them to Chinese control”. And he also wrote that US President Donald Trump reversed penalties imposed on ZTE by the US Commerce Department, and offered to reverse criminal prosecution against Huawei to improve his…
