Oh? I'm under arrest. What for?
(CHANTING) Stop 5G. Stop 5G.
Stop 5G.
If you are not
currently working to stop 5G,
this means you don't understand it.
Nothing else matters anymore.
MAN: Stop 5G!
MAN: Stop 5g! Stop 5G!
5G free!
REPORTER: Around the world,
a new protest movement
is stoking fear and anger.
Stop 5G.
Their fight is against the next
generation of wireless technology,
5G, that's predicted
to change our lives.
MAN: And this is going to allow a
whole revolution in the way we live
and organise ourselves.
MAN: It's going to
really change the world
because 5G can do things
that 4G could never do.
It really is going to be
a game changer.
Despite its extraordinary promise,
the opposition to 5G has
in some places turned violent.
Gonna send the message out.
It's fuelled
wild conspiracy theories
that have quickly spilled
from online into the real world.
MAN: 5G burning, bro.
And there are much bigger forces
at play.
I think we'd be naive if we did not
recognise the possibility
that some of these claims are being
generated by hostile governments.
While protesters
rail against 5G's spread,
a greater threat is looming -
a global technology war.
The race to 5G
is a race America must win.
It's a race that we will win.
Tonight on Four Corners,
we investigate what's behind
the growing backlash against 5G
and why the world's superpowers
are vying for 5G dominance.
It's a crisp winter's morning
in the town of Mullumbimby.
With its vibrant mix of locals,
backpackers and transient hippies,
it's known as the "counter-culture
capital" of the NSW North Coast.
MAN: Mullumbimby is a very
diverse community.
There's a very
alternative vibe here
and a lot of people that have
a very deep mistrust of government,
very health oriented, and so
a lot of organic health foods here,
anti-GMO, big anti-fracking
movement.
It's probably the anti-vax
capital of Australia,
if not the Western world.
Today, they're gathering
for a protest.
There's a grab bag of complaints,
but most of the people
are here to protest against 5G.
The first thing I wanted to say
was...stop 5G.
CROWD: Stop 5G!
Stop 5G!
Stop 5G!
That's what!
(CHEERING)
Stop 5G.
For the radiation we don't need.
They're heading for Mullumbimby's
lone telecommunications tower.
No 5G. No 5G.
For months, protestors
have targeted this tower
over Telstra's plans to upgrade it
to the 5G network.
# We don't need more radiation
# We don't need more radiation
# We don't need more radiation... #
The protesters here are worried
that radio signals from 5G towers
could be damaging to their health.
I don't want to be a human lab rat.
You know?
Because that's what's happening.
They're just using us to see
if it's going to be OK.
And if we die,
well, we've got so many of us.
Yeah, because I'm worried about
our kids, the future.
It's not proved yet
that 5G is safe enough.
To prevent Telstra's upgrade,
activists have been maintaining
a round-the-clock vigil at the tower
for more than three months.
Guarding the tower tonight is
Sherrie Yeomans and her dog Bundy.
Well, basically,
we're here protecting the tower
to stop Telstra moving in
with the cherry picker.
We know they need
the cherry picker to upgrade to 5G.
So, there's quite a team of us,
tag teaming, a couple of hours,
four hours, or overnight, to protect
the tower from any works occurring.
Activists claimed a victory in March
when the local council
passed a resolution
calling for a halt to the upgrade.
For now, Telstra has
stopped work on the tower.
I think for Telstra to roll out
the installation of 5G
during a pandemic in Mullumbimby,
um, you know, it was...
..I'm sure they thought they were
very clever doing that,
but I think it was
a really bad move,
and I think it really played
into people's paranoia around this,
and, you know,
into the conspiracy theory,
and that this is all a move
to institute a technology
that is potentially harmful.
Telstra's tower at Mullumbimby
is just one of thousands of sites
being upgraded to 5G
across the country.
Australia's
telecommunications companies
are spending billions of dollars
building networks
that they say will transform
how we live and work,
with no risk to our health.
Here on the Gold Coast,
Telstra has built an Innovation
Centre to show off what 5G can do.
What we're looking at here
is a 5G device.
So with a 4G device,
we're talking about downloading
an HD movie in minutes.
But this is 5G technology...
Channa Seneviratne is driving
Telstra's 5G rollout.
What we can do is download
an HD movie in seconds.
So, minutes versus seconds.
That's kind of the difference
between the two technologies.
And is that absolutely how fast
this is going to ever get?
Look, this is only the beginning.
It's going to be twice,
three times faster than this
in the next few years.
5G promises a future
where everything is high speed
and interconnected.
From autonomous vehicles
to fight bushfires
to hyper-efficient agriculture
and remote surgery.
CHANNA SENEVIRATNE: Just imagine
a paramedic with 5G technology.
You could, for example,
have the paramedic
using a pair of, you know,
augmented reality glasses.
So, what that paramedic sees,
you could transmit back to
a specialist back in the hospital.
That person can then
look at the patient
as if they were there.
They can provide advice.
They could even send an instruction,
which could be displayed
on a heads-up screen.
And that's the kind of thing
which you can do in real time on 5G,
which you can't today do on 4G.
MAN: 5G's not just about phone calls
and ever-increasing
resolution of videos.
It's going to unlock
the Internet of Things.
And this is where machines
start talking to machines.
And this is going to allow a whole
revolution in the way we live
and organise ourselves.
For example, the smart city.
We can start
coordinating traffic flow,
which is going to have
safety benefits,
it's going to have
emission benefits.
And beyond traffic,
it's going to be coordinating
air conditioning in buildings,
coordinating lighting in buildings.
All sorts of things when machines
start sensing the environment
and actions can be taken.
To deliver the fastest speeds,
phone companies need to use
higher frequency signals
known as millimetre waves.
But millimetre wave signals can't
travel as far as existing signals.
So for it to work, there's
a need for many more antennas,
installed much closer together.
We would deploy millimetre wave
in a CBD, for example,
where there is a lot of traffic.
What it will probably look like
is that you will probably see
a cell site in most street corners.
But because it is
at that high frequency,
the antennas themselves are
very small and almost invisible.
At the heart of the health concerns
expressed by 5G activists
is what's called
radiofrequency radiation,
emitted by everything from radios,
TVs and microwave ovens
to wi-fi networks and mobile phones.
Activists fear that more antennas
mean more of this radiation
and that it will cause problems
ranging from anxiety to epilepsy
and brain cancer.
WOMAN: Do we want this?
Do we want these towers
blighting our landscape?
Do we need more radiation?
Do we want driverless cars?
Who's asked for this?
There's been no consultation.
We are going to be in a radiation
soup that we cannot opt out of.
So, at the moment, we have choices.
Once 5G is implemented,
we no longer have any choice.
We are in a soup of radiation
that we cannot escape.
MAN: The voice current,
or the audio frequency current,
as it comes from the transformer
is amplified by vacuum tubes,
such as these.
Concerns about radiation have been
around for more than 100 years.
..in such as manner
as to produce waves
which travel through the air.
Doctors first wrote
about what they called "radiophobia"
as early as 1903, to describe people
who were afraid of radio speakers.
REPORTER: Yet anxieties
about powerlines...
In the '80s, it was the radiation
emitted by powerlines.
REPORTER: They're invisible
and just about everywhere.
Do we play Russian roulette
with people's children?
Should you be taking steps
to keep your kids away
from electromagnetic fields?
REPORTER: Microwave cooking units,
like those in the NASA
Lunar Receiving Laboratory...
MAN: There was a very big
community concern
when microwave ovens came out.
Keep your eye on
the chocolate cupcake.
It rises faster than you can eat it.
There was concern that
food being cooked in it
would be poisonous.
This is cooking by microwave.
Cooking without heat.
When mobile phones came out,
there was concern in the public.
As we moved from first generation
to second generation with 2G phones,
from 2G to 3G, 3G to 4G,
and now 4G to 5G,
we tend to get another wave
of concern from the public.
And that's not linked
to important changes
to what the actual technology
is doing.
So, the actual physical agent,
the radiation that's being emitted
by these devices
is essentially the same
as it's always been,
and essentially the same
as we've had around with radio,
for instance,
AM and FM radio for many years.
If I just get you to hold on
to the front of the cap...
..while I get the rest
of it arranged...
Rodney Croft is chairman of
the key international body
that recommends safe exposure limits
for radiofrequency radiation.
This is one of the most researched
physical agents in the world.
There are just thousands
and thousands of papers out there
that have gone into everything
from epidemiology of cancer
to simple, does it make
you feel bad, agitated,
cause you symptoms of any form?
Perfect. OK.
Now what I'm going to do
is get you to do the memory task
that we were doing before.
I'm gonna leave the room.
At his lab at Wollongong University,
Rodney Croft runs tests
on the effects of radiofrequency
radiation on humans.
This test is simulating
the radiation emitted
by mobile phones.
What we're really doing
is setting people up,
putting electrodes on their head,
looking at the brain activity,
the electrical activity
caused by the brain,
and whether it's being influenced
by the mobile phones.
When we started, we were looking
for large changes in the brain,
thinking it could be a real problem.
But we just don't find those.
We don't see any changes
in brain cancer,
which is something that we often
hear activists complain about.
And, well, there's probably
thousands of claims out there
and none of them
have actually bore any fruit
in terms of
being able to demonstrate
that there is
an adverse health effect
due to mobile phone usage.
Some people also say that,
particularly with
5G millimetre wave technology,
there is concern because it will mean
more antennas all over the place,
and therefore more radiation
out in the atmosphere
that we will be exposed to.
What do you think about that claim?
So far, the research suggests
that it's just not the case.
Generally, what you do
is you have more antennas
so that you can reduce
the actual exposure.
The further you are from an antenna,
the more the antenna has to work,
the more energy it has to
pump into the environment.
So, tests comparing, for instance,
the latest roll out of 5G against 4G
finds very similar levels.
And I must say,
the levels are generally about
100 to 1,000 times lower than are
permitted by the guidelines.
They're exceedingly small.
Sean, this is one of our labs,
and we're the only company
here in Australia that can do
mobile phone testing,
radiation testing for manufacturers.
This lab in Melbourne tests
how much radio frequency radiation
is emitted by devices
like mobile phones,
using highly specialised equipment
that mimics a human body.
This set-up here represents,
or it's simulating, a human head.
We've put down a mobile phone
at the bottom of the table here
that represents the ear,
the phone touching the ear.
And we've got this liquid
that simulates the body mass
and tissue within our head.
And this probe is going in
at different parts of our head
and measuring radio frequency energy
coming out of the mobile phone
and how much of that is being
absorbed by our body tissue.
And why do you need to do this test?
This is THE test that mobile
phone manufacturer need to do
to make sure that radio frequency
energy coming out of their phone
is meeting the Australian
Government rules and regulations
and limits set
for those sorts of energies.
So, in other words, to make sure
the phones are safe?
Absolutely.
To make sure that
the phones are safe
to be used by general population.
Humans are commonly exposed
to two types of radiation.
Ionising radiation,
which includes X-rays,
and non-ionising radiation,
which includes
the radiofrequency emissions
from mobile phones or the 5G network.
We know that ionising radiation
causes a lot of health effects,
not just cancer,
but other effects as well.
So, you know,
that's clearly something
that people would be
concerned about.
Now, radiofrequency
is in what's called
the non-ionising
wavelengths of radiation,
so it doesn't cause,
you know, DNA damage
to genetic material and so on, so...
But I think people hear "radiation"
and they think that, you know,
it's something that could
potentially be harmful.
The science of radio frequency
radiation is highly contentious.
Much of the concern stems
from a landmark 2011 review
by the World Health Organisation
looking at previous studies
of the effects
of mobile phone radiation.
Malcolm Sim was one of the authors.
We were invited from all different
parts of the world to come together
to review
all of the scientific evidence
in our particular area of expertise.
So, my area was primarily
the human studies
that had been performed.
The WHO routinely evaluates
and classifies substances
that can cause cancer.
A Group 1 classification means
"carcinogenic to humans".
It includes alcohol and tobacco.
Group 2A means
"probably carcinogenic",
and includes red meat
and very hot drinks.
Group 2B is possibly carcinogenic.
It includes things like car exhaust,
but also some contraceptive pills
and pickled vegetables.
The expert panel decided to classify
radiofrequency radiation
in Group 2B.
MALCOLM SIM:
Our group concluded that taking
the human evidence
and the animal evidence together,
there was limited evidence
of radiofrequency
causing cancer in humans.
I mean, you've got a whole lot
of scientists from around the world,
each with their own perspective
on the data,
and often they'll have
their own interpretation.
And so there was
not universal agreement
about it being classified
as Group 2B.
There was some members of the group
who thought it should be
a lower classification than that,
but the majority view was that
it should be a Group 2B carcinogen.
So, it was picked up by a lot
of media outlets at the time.
And there was a strong sense that,
yes, this meeting had shown
that, yes, it was a cause
of cancer in humans.
But that wasn't justified?
Well, I think you need to understand
the way that these things
are classified.
So, this is, from our point of view,
the people reviewing the evidence,
it was very limited evidence.
We've looked at other compounds
where the evidence is
incredibly strong and consistent
and, you know, there
you're very worried about them
as a cause of cancer.
The WHO later issued information
about managing the potential risk
of mobile phone radiation.
And so the approach at that time
was for WHO to recommend
a precautionary approach,
to take steps to reduce exposure.
The main exposure is when
it's very close to your head.
So use a hands-free device,
use speaker phone,
that sort of thing,
when using the phone.
RODNEY CROFT: I don't think the
classification was very significant.
It's certainly been significant
in terms of people's concern.
To obtain that classification,
they don't require any research
to demonstrate that mobile phones
actually cause cancer.
What's required is that there is
an association identified
between cancer and mobile phone
usage epidemiologically.
That could mean one of two things.
It could mean that
there is an association
related to mobile phone use,
or it could just mean that
there is a spurious association.
And the subsequent research
just hasn't shown
that there is any relationship.
(PEOPLE CHANT)
The COVID-19 pandemic
has supercharged the activism
around the 5G rollout.
MAN: Fight for your right!
In the centre of Sydney,
anti-vaxxers,
anti-lockdown activists,
far-right conspiracy theorists,
and anti-5G campaigners
have all united
under the catchcry
of "freedom of choice".
COVID-19 has caused
an explosion in public awareness.
Rather than meekly hunkering down
under house arrest,
men and women
have taken to their computers
and begun to ask questions,
many of them for the first time.
A registered nurse, Naomi Cook,
helps run Australia's
largest anti-5G Facebook group
called Australians
for Safe Technology.
If you are not currently
working to stop 5G,
this means you don't understand it.
Nothing else matters anymore.
(CHEERING)
MAN: Stop 5G!
MAN: Stop 5G! Stop 5G!
We know there is a much bigger
and darker picture at play here...
We saw in the first two weeks
of lockdown
an explosion in group members,
and I guess
the most obvious reason for that
is that people were at home
and they had time to think,
and they had time ask questions
that perhaps they didn't have
the head space to do before that.
And then through asking
their own questions
and doing their own research,
perhaps some of them had the same
concerns that we have about 5G
and so they joined our groups.
And what sort of numbers did you see?
We went up from
probably around 8,000 members
to 40,000 in the first
couple of weeks of lockdown.
Naomi Cook's group is one of
about 80 across Australia.
It now has more than 48,000 members
and is one of the world's largest
anti-5G Facebook groups.
You know, it's amazing.
It's all been
completely spontaneous,
self-organised and grassroots.
And so there's no kind of rule book
that we go by,
but what we do works.
We all respect each other.
There is no one single leader
of this movement.
We're all leaders.
You know, everyone is.
Um, and, yeah,
so, you know, quite often,
someone will share something
in one group,
then it gets re-shared
in another group,
um, and, yeah, awareness spreads.
Recent posts include a strategy kit
for how to lobby your doctor
and local council over 5G.
But members of the group
also regularly share
some of the most extreme conspiracy
theories about 5G on the internet.
VOICEOVER: This technology cooked
your eyes like eggs in World War II.
And you all need to understand
these are military weapons,
these are
assault frequencies.
Naomi Cook was invited to speak
about 5G at the Sydney rally,
which was organised
by an anti-vaccination group.
So, was the joint rally
a deliberate strategy
to make it look like
far more people were interested
in each of the issues
than was actually the case?
No!
That's so sad!
No, these were separate groups,
each with very important issues
that they were passionate about,
uniting on one day.
Yeah, no, I don't think so.
I mean, certainly,
in our groups, for example,
we never said,
"This was a 5G rally."
You know, no, I don't think so.
You'd have to be pretty dishonest
to do something like that.
So, you don't think
it was a strategy?
No, I don't think
there was any strategy.
I didn't sniff out
anything like that.
Naomi Cook is now on the committee
of a political party
opposed to mandatory vaccination,
and she's backing plans
for a new anti-5G party.
Our movement is growing
all the time.
So, as our movement grows,
having a political party almost
creates, you know, a platform
that may be conducive
to bringing about change.
So, from that perspective,
I think it's a very valid way
to tackle the 5G problem.
(PEOPLE CHANT)
MAN: I think
for the anti-5G groups,
but also many other
conspiracy theorists,
a pandemic like this,
a crisis like this,
is very useful
to draw attention to their causes
because they can link
the pandemic, in this case,
with whatever their cause is,
whether it's 5G,
whether it's anti-vaccination,
whether it's other
typical conspiracy stories.
So, they can connect this crisis
with whatever it is
that they're focusing on
and say, "Aha, we knew it all along.
"Something was coming.
Here it is now.
"And so, now you must listen to us
"because we've been correct
all along."
The coincidental arrival of COVID-19
and the rollout of 5G networks
sparked one of the wildest
conspiracy theories of all -
the coronavirus was caused by 5G.
Four Corners has tracked
how the theory went viral
around the world.
The first known appearance
of the conspiracy theory online
was on January 19
when this was posted on Twitter.
When it was picked up
just over a week later
by the notorious far-right
conspiracy website Infowars,
it made the jump
to a larger audience.
VOICEOVER: 5G causes
flu-like symptoms.
Interesting?
By February, the torrent
of misinformation about coronavirus
was so great,
the United Nations branded it
an "infodemic".
Fake news spreads faster
and more easily than this virus,
and is just as dangerous.
Within weeks, the 5G conspiracy
theory gathered more steam
when it was raised by
controversial US doctor Thomas Cowan
at an anti-vaccination conference.
There has been
a dramatic and quantum leap
in the last six months with
the electrification of the Earth.
And I'm sure a lot of you know
what that is. It's called 5G.
Cowan was on probation
after being found guilty in 2017
of unprofessional conduct
by the Californian Medical Board.
And I'll finish with, anybody wanna
make one guess as to where
the first completely blanketed
5G city in the world was?
Exactly.
So, when you start
thinking about this,
we are in
an existential crisis here, folks.
Days later, this video of the lecture
was promoted by
US pop singer Keri Hilson
to her 4.2 million followers
on Twitter.
Then rapper Wiz Khalifa
fuelled the conspiracy theory
with a tweet
to his 36 million followers.
Other celebrities
shared the theory, too,
including Woody Harrelson,
John Cusack, and MIA.
Celebrities really become
super-spreaders in all of this.
They have millions, if not
tens of millions, of followers
via their various
social media accounts.
And so, once they start posting
about these conspiracy theories,
even critically,
that makes them much more visible
and reaches a much larger
and more diverse audience.
WOMAN: Hi, guys.
Hello.
Do you work for the NHS?
Uh, no.
Soon, the conspiracy theory
made the leap
from online to the real world.
You don't know the symptoms of it.
It's a kill switch.
5G technicians in the UK
began reporting
being abused
and threatened with violence.
But do you know what you're
doing there? You're laying 5G.
Yeah.
You realise that, don't you?
Yeah?
Yeah.
So, you know that kills people?
MAN: Gonna fall, that is, bro.
That's gonna fall, that is.
Next, anti-5G activists
began burning phone towers.
5G burnin', bro.
By early May,
more than 70 mobile phone towers
had been attacked in the UK,
and more than a dozen more
across Europe, North America,
New Zealand and Australia.
MAN: Gonna send the message out.
(BLEEP) 5G.
(BLEEP) you, government.
(BLEEP) you, New World Order.
REPORTER: Counter-terrorism police
have been brought in
following international
attacks on phone towers
linked to conspiracy theories that
the 5G network spreads coronavirus.
REPORTER: Another fire
has caused extensive damage
to a phone tower equipment
in Adelaide's south.
At an anti-lockdown rally
in Melbourne,
5G was again linked to coronavirus.
MAN: Get on the ground!
Get on the ground! Back off!
Hello, everyone. Um...
It prompted a sharp response
from Australia's then chief
medical officer Brendan Murphy.
There is, unfortunately, a lot of
very silly misinformation out there.
There is absolutely no evidence
about 5G doing anything
in the coronavirus space.
I have unfortunately received
a lot of communication
from these conspiracy theorists
myself.
It is complete nonsense.
5G has got nothing at all
to do with coronavirus.
Four Corners' investigations
show the global spread of
misinformation about 5G
is no accident.
There's growing concern more
sinister players may be involved...
..and that hostile governments
may have exploited the movement
for their own interests.
MAN: There is misinformation
circulating about 5G,
including the entirely
fallacious claim
that it has adverse health impacts,
and, more recently,
the claim that it's linked in any
way to COVID-19 or the coronavirus.
And I'm making the related point,
that it is well accepted
by commentators and experts
in the subject of misinformation
and disinformation
that there are known
state actors involved
in circulating
and generating disinformation.
And what sort of interests
would that serve, do you think?
It creates division.
It creates disruptions.
It creates protests.
It creates possibly more people
disobeying any lockdown orders,
any social distancing orders.
And, of course, that then
further damages the economy,
damages the population
in the first place
by spreading the virus further.
So, it weakens, ultimately, the
countries that they're addressing.
The original tweet
linking 5G to coronavirus
came from an anonymous account
that regularly posts
pro-Russian government content.
That tweet linked to an article
by the Russian
state-owned news outlet RT,
formerly known as Russia Today.
Is there a catch?
There is. Just a small one.
It might kill you.
(CHUCKLES) Good to know.
RT America has
enthusiastically broadcast
widely discredited health fears
about 5G.
It's just really sold to us
as being awesome,
but the downside is that
with this rollout
it will be impossible to exist
in a city or to walk outside
without being exposed.
Another source of
anti-5G misinformation
is conspiracy website
Global Research,
which takes a relentlessly
pro-Kremlin line.
Australia's largest
anti-5G Facebook group
has shared articles published
by Global Research...
..including one that claims 5G
is a "weapons system disguised
as a consumer convenience"
and might be
"killing all the insects".
I think we'd be naive if we did not
recognise the possibility
that some of these claims are being
generated by hostile governments
or by others
who have a motive to try and create
instability and disorder
in democracies like Australia.
We know that disinformation
and misinformation
has been an issue in elections
in other countries,
and so that cannot be ruled out,
in my view,
as a possible driver
of some of this.
Some particular people
in relation to this issue
have talked about Russia potentially
being interested in doing that.
Would you agree that
that's a possibility?
Look, I'm not going to be commenting
on any individual nation.
I simply make the general point
that it is pretty well accepted
in the commentary and analysis
on this issue
that there are...
..there's a high likelihood
that state actors are involved.
And when you look at something
which is entirely
without any scientific basis,
and where there appears to be
a systematic effort
to try and raise concerns that are,
in fact, without substance,
this appears to be
what is occurring,
or at least one of the factors,
in relation to
misinformation and disinformation
in relation to 5G.
(RUSSIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYS)
(APPLAUSE)
We are leading by so much...
For the world's superpowers,
5G is developing into
a critical technology arms race.
The race to 5G
is a race America must win,
and it's a race, frankly, that our
great companies are now involved in.
We've given them
the incentive they need.
It's a race that we will win.
Because, as you know,
some people got ahead of us.
We should have been doing this
a long time ago.
In the race for technology dominance,
a new leader is emerging.
China is on the rise.
WOMAN: If we think about
technological innovation,
we think about US, Silicon Valley.
And yet there seems to be a sense
that US is not
as competitive at the moment.
There are communities in the US
thinking that China is eating US,
America's lunch.
It is losing technological
advantage, it is losing markets.
It is losing also influence.
A 5G world dominated by China
raises the terrifying prospect
of it shutting down entire countries
in times of conflict.
What are the potential
vulnerabilities
for a country with 5G?
Well, everything in our society
relies upon connected technologies,
from our supermarkets
to our electricity generation
and distribution,
to our hospitals, our traffic
lights, our banking and finance.
It means if those technologies
fail or are turned off,
that would have
catastrophic consequences.
You would lose lives,
there is no doubt,
in the most extreme end
of the scenario.
The US's great rival, Russia,
has chosen its side.
Last year, Vladimir Putin
announced a major deal
with the Chinese tech giant Huawei
to supply 5G equipment.
MAN: (TRANSLATES) There
are unceremonious attempts
at pushing Huawei
from the global market.
Some call it the first technological
war of the new digital era.
Huawei was founded by Chinese
billionaire Ren Zhengfei,
a former civil engineer
with the People's Liberation Army.
The company has grown to become
a global leader in 5G technology...
..even showing off its prowess
by rolling out 5G on Mount Everest.
MAN: Whatever you say about Huawei,
everyone knows that we are the
world leader when it comes to 5G.
We spent billions of dollars
in research and development.
And by the time 5G came around,
we were a clear leader.
But Huawei's attempts to break
into the Australian 5G market
were spectacularly dashed
by the Turnbull government
in August 2018.
Chinese tech giant Huawei
has been effectively banned
from building Australia's
5G network,
because of national
security concerns.
ALASTAIR MacGIBBON: Well,
Australia banned high-risk vendors,
vendors that are domiciled
in high-risk countries,
of which clearly China is one
because of
its national security laws
that compel organisations
domiciled there
to cooperate with and assist
their intelligence agencies.
TURNBULL: The reality is that
if we were to have high-risk vendors
from China, in this context,
who provided our 5G technology,
the technology
that underpins the network
and in effect builds the network,
that would give them
the capability, if they chose,
to very seriously
and gravely disrupt
our economy and infrastructure,
industrial activities,
economic activities,
financial activities.
It's a... It is... It would be...
It's a very, very profound
capability.
Central to the Australian
government's concerns
was a 2017 Chinese law
that compels companies to:
If you believe that there is a risk,
that you could get
into a conflict...
..you know, a time of tension,
a time of conflict,
where pressure may be sought
to be brought upon you,
then you've got to say,
"Well, we'll just hedge there,
"and we won't have those high-risk
vendors providing 5G in Australia."
So, it's not identifying
a smoking gun,
it's identifying a loaded gun.
We've had legal advice inside China
and outside China
that says that that law
doesn't pertain to us.
It's directed at operators
rather than vendors.
But even if it was,
and we were asked by the Chinese
government to do something,
to go against our customers,
Ren, our founder,
has said he would say no.
He would rather see the company
fold overnight
than actually do anything to risk
the trust that we have
by our customers.
No matter what Huawei thinks,
no matter what the management think,
no matter what the spokesperson
that they send to talk
to Four Corners thinks,
they will not
be making the decision.
Ultimately, if the Communist Party
leadership in Beijing
decide they want Huawei
or want to use Huawei's capabilities
in a manner that is adverse
to Australia,
it will happen.
Australia was the first country
in the world to ban Huawei
from its 5G network.
Huawei has blamed pressure
from the United States.
Mr Prime Minister,
thank you very much.
MITCHELL: The United States have
been very public about their call
for countries to ban Huawei.
We know when Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull went to Washington
in February of 2018,
that's six months
before the Huawei ban,
the US advised him that they did not
want Huawei in Australia's 5G.
I mean, they were so adamant in it
it was leaked to the media
at the time.
So essentially, they're saying
you bowed to US pressure.
Did you?
No. That is completely untrue.
In fact, the 5G issue was raised
by me with the Americans.
And that is...that is...
that assertion by Huawei
is utterly false.
It was raised by me
when I was in discussions
with the administration,
and it was something
that we made a point about.
It was a matter of
very keen interest to us.
But I want to say the proposition
that we were directed or advised
to keep Huawei out of our network
by the US
is simply not true.
We convinced many countries...
The US and the UK
have now both banned Huawei
from their 5G networks.
..not to use Huawei.
And Donald Trump
is urging others to follow.
It's an unsafe security risk.
It's a big security risk.
There's no US company
that does wireless.
So what we're seeing is
the US asking countries
to essentially pause
and wait for a catch-up,
because there's a gap between the
US ability to do wireless technology
and companies like Huawei.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: The West, really,
in an absence of mind,
allowed its leadership in
wireless technology to be lost.
And that was a massive failure
of the West
and, particularly, obviously,
in Washington,
where they were, excuse the pun,
asleep at the switch.
The promise of 5G was to create
a more connected world.
Instead, one of the biggest
technology revolutions in a century
could leave the world
even more divided.
HUONG LE THU: At the extreme,
the concern is
that this technological competition,
or tech war,
can result in so-called
technological iron curtain,
where we have
a technologically divided world,
where certain countries will use
Chinese-provided technology
and others won't.
So, there will be
a lot of disconnect.
Pushing that Huawei ban is seen as,
in many countries,
is seen as asking to choose sides.
Do you want to be with team US
or you want to be with team China?
These concerns are a long way from
the front line of the other 5G war.
Activists in Mullumbimby
are still determined
to keep 5G out of their town.
And at the Telstra tower,
the vigil goes on.
SHERRIE YEOMANS: We're not putting
a time limit on this.
Ideally, we would like something
concrete from Telstra
saying there won't be any works
happening.
That's basically what we're waiting
for at this point in time.
MAN: So, you're willing to wait
as long as it takes?
Absolutely.
We're not going anywhere.
You know, we're here
and we're not going anywhere.
Captions by Red Bee Media
Copyright Australian Broadcasting
Corporation
