Andy Purdy (right), Chief Security Officer of Huawei Technologies U.S., speaks at a panel discussion themed U.S.-China Tech Battle at the China Institute in New York on August 1. Paul Triolo (center), head of geotechnology at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, and Douglas B. Fuller, Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong joined him in the discussion (ZHAO WEI) 

Decoupling in the technology sector from China would not be beneficial to the U.S. in the short term or the long term, said Andy Purdy, Chief Security Officer for Huawei Technologies USA, at a recent panel discussion at the New York-based China Institute. 

The event themed U.S.-China Tech Battle was held just hours after U.S. President Trump announced another round of tariffs on imports from China set to be effective next month. As technology has become a focal point of U.S.-China trade tensions this summer, discussions have grown heated. 

A move roundly criticized at the event was the U.S. Commerce Department's addition of Huawei to its Entity List, effectively banning U.S. suppliers from selling to the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker without special approval.  

In late June, at the G20 Summit in Osaka, Trump told reporters he was considering reversing Huawei's placement on the Entity List, as part of wide trade negotiations with China. "We are not interested in being a bargaining chip between the U.S. and China," said Purdy at the panel.  

"The $11 billion we spend every year [on purchases] from American companies could go away," said Purdy. "And if Huawei goes our own way, we might not come back."  

"What we need to think about strategically is what's in the best interest of our country," said Purdy. He suggested the U.S. needs to "look at all the jobs are going to be created from the digitization of the vertical industries that are going to come from 5G and IOT (Internet of Things)."

"We have to work to figure out what are the best ways to do that and from a security perspective, it is a balancing between the benefits and the cost and security," Purdy said.  

"We need to make sure that we work globally to strengthen the standards," Purdy said, adding that a uniform set of standards for 5G should be not just for security, but also for its functionality. 

"The U.S. Government and major companies shouldn't just complain that Huawei is a global leader in standards. Get involved! We welcome you," said Purdy.  

Purdy was joined onstage by Paul Triolo, head of geotechnology at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, and Douglas B. Fuller, Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong.  

Describing the consequences of barring Huawei, Fuller said that since "the U.S. doesn't have a vendor for telecommunication equipment like Huawei, all the U.S. is really doing, in trying to hurt Huawei, is helping Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung." Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia are considered the two major non-Chinese 5G players.  

Purdy also said that Nokia and Ericsson are making a lot of money, but China is not stopping Nokia and Ericsson from participating in 5G, which he thinks is smart.     

Triolo added that "the debate around Huawei ends up being very simplistic" and that Washington has strayed from discussing more plausible security risks surrounding 5G "that apply to all vendors and carriers" and addressing them within a global framework, which currently does not exist.  

Huawei tapped Purdy, a former cybersecurity official with the U.S. Government who was once Acting Director of the National Cybersecurity Division for the Department of Homeland Security, back in 2012, while the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee was in the middle of investigating links between Huawei and the Chinese Government. They eventually concluded Huawei, as well as ZTE, posed a threat to national security because of those alleged links. During the panel, Purdy asserted "there's no evidence that our company is owned by the Chinese Government."

Purdy also insisted that "no one has asked for illegal backdoors and we would refuse if they did," echoing a claim made by Huawei's founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, who earlier this year said the company had never received a government request "to provide improper information." More recently, Ren stated Huawei was seeking to sign "no backdoors agreements" with foreign governments.  

Kevin Pinner is a freelance writer based in New York 

Copyedited by Madhusudan Chaubey 

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