There’s a familiar scent in the air — not fear exactly, but recognition. Europe has been here before. The sudden political clarity around removing Huawei and other Chinese technology suppliers from critical telecom infrastructure echoes the same late-to-realize urgency that unfolded after Russia turned its energy exports into geopolitical leverage. Back then, Europe discovered — painfully — that dependence on a rival is not a business model. It’s a vulnerability. And yet, here we are again, only this time the battleground isn’t gas pipelines. It’s 5G antennas, fiber backbones, and the foundations of the next digital century.
For years, Europe convinced itself that interdependence equaled stability. Cheap Russian gas kept industries humming, households warm, and policymakers complacent. Huawei’s telecom gear worked similarly: inexpensive, rapidly deployable, irresistible to operators operating under brutal cost pressure. The logic was transactional: *If it works and it’s cheap, why worry?* The flaw in that logic only becomes visible when the supplier stops behaving like a business and starts acting like a geopolitical instrument.
Russia shattered that illusion in 2022. Europe woke up one morning with pipelines turned into bargaining chips and energy bills transformed into political blackmail. It was a cold and humiliating reminder that critical infrastructure tied to an authoritarian rival becomes a weapon long before anyone fires a shot. The EU swore then that such strategic naivety would never be repeated.
And yet, telecom dependence on China grew during those same years — quietly, almost politely. Huawei wasn’t stuffing Europe with natural gas; it was wiring its digital nervous system. Different domain, same risk profile.
The parallel becomes even sharper when we remember the timing. Europe lost its telecom leadership while Huawei surged — just as Europe shut down nuclear plants and expanded gas imports from Russia. Both decisions were framed as pragmatic and cost-efficient. Both became geopolitical liabilities.
If relying on Vladimir Putin to heat European homes was reckless, relying on Beijing to run Europe’s future 6G and AI-driven networks is borderline absurd.
Energy can be stockpiled, rerouted, diversified. Telecom infrastructure, once installed, becomes permanent architecture. It’s the difference between replacing a gas supplier and replacing the wiring inside your central nervous system. Removing Huawei is not simply a policy shift — it’s a technical amputation. But the alternative — leaving it untouched — means accepting permanent exposure to influence, intelligence vulnerabilities, and economic pressure.
Cutting ties now is not nationalism. It’s realism.
Europe’s telecom future — 6G, 7G, quantum-resilient networks, autonomous infrastructure — cannot be built on equipment that answers to a foreign party-state whose interests diverge from European values and alliances. The continent cannot talk about sovereignty, digital democracy, and strategic autonomy while outsourcing its technological backbone to China.
Just as with Russian gas, the transition will be uncomfortable, expensive, and logistically messy. But hindsight has already offered its lesson: the price of dependence always comes due — and it’s always higher than the cost of independence.
This moment isn’t about punishing China or romanticizing domestic industry. It’s about finally learning from a geopolitical mistake made once and refusing to repeat it in a more dangerous domain.
Europe stopped heating its homes with pipelines controlled by Moscow. Now it must stop building its future with circuit boards controlled by Beijing.
Late yes — but late is still better than powerless.
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