Building UK's D-10 initiative and the 5G Competition

One such grouping is the group of 10 leading democracies or the D-10 club. Proposed by the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last year in the aftermath of the cancellation of the G-7 summit, the D-10 emerged as a lucrative alternative for multilateral cooperation in order to find effective telecom policy and global supply chains in the face of an aggressive China. The 10 countries proposed include the G7 countries – UK, US, Italy, Germany, France, Japan and Canada – plus Australia, South Korea and India. The idea has received a thumbs up from leading policymakers and foreign policy experts including Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary-general. Writing for Wall Street Journal, Rasmussen argued that the opportunity is ripe to “recover from the West’s crippling disease of democratic self-doubt” [1]. Edward Fishman and Siddharth Mohandas, writing for Foreign Affairs, defined the D-10 as “a group of capable, committed, and cohesive democracies that could muster the political will and real resources” [2].

A Foreign Policy editorial argued how the D-10 is a golden opportunity for a post-Brexit Britain to "put some meat on the bones" on the Global Britain concept pitched by Boris Johnson and his fellow Conservatives [3]. Britain is striving to carve out an individual identity and make space for itself in global politics after the divorce from the European Union (EU). If the D-10 club takes off, the UK is certain to file for credit and pitch itself as a global leader and champion of the western democratic international order.

Setting the Agenda for D-10

The concept of the D-10 group emerged in the backdrop of China’s 5G rollout and the Huawei controversy. Apart from the adverse reaction of the U.S due to the overt rivalry with China, the other country that was quick to pause Huawei’s 5G rollout was the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-led government proposed a Telecommunications Security Bill which bans the Chinese company from the country’s telecom network owing to the threat of security and the alleged links with China’s communist party-state. The bill aimed to “boost the security standards of the UK’s telecoms networks and remove the threat of high-risk vendors”. Citing a threat of cyber attacks from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, the bill exclusively highlighted a 2018 group attack by the Chinese ‘APT 10’ on global networks, also known as ‘Cloudhopper’, in which it targeted a range of companies, including in aerospace and defence, telecommunications, professional services, utility sectors among others [4].

BBC quoted Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden on the U.K’s efforts in "complete removal of high-risk vendors" from 5G networks. Giving a deadline of 2027, the U.K ordered its telecom operators to completely remove the Huawei kit from the 5G network in the country. Other than the Chinese firm, Ericsson and Nokia are two suppliers of 5G in the U.K and worldwide. Huawei on the other hand has dismissed the security concerns, calling out the U.S. for pressurising its allies. Vice-President Victor Zhang mentioned how the decision to remove the firm from the UK's 5G network was "politically motivated and not based on a fair evaluation of the risks" [5].

Challenges to the D-10

It has been almost a year since the D-10 has emerged as a concept in the international arena. In this one year, despite a change in U.S. Presidency, the U.S. remains at loggerheads with a defiant China over trade, technology and military expansion. Huawei is already banned in the U.K, U.S, Australia and New Zealand; all four of them along with Canada are part of The Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing network. Despite a public spat with China over the arrest of two Canadian citizens, Canada is yet to take a final decision on the inclusion of Huawei in the country’s next-generation 5G internet network. Japan, another crucial U.S-ally also has banned the participation of the Chinese firm in its 5G rollout while South Korea has already launched its 5G network with local telecom operators like SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus [6]. On the other hand, the EU does not hold a united strategy on the matter. While the European Commission has recommended a “common EU approach” in setting up the 5G toolbox to protect critical infrastructure against security threats, the region has adopted a mixed approach. Countries like Sweden have excluded the Chinese technology giant but major players like Germany are attempting a balancing act. Abraham Liu, Huawei’s chief representative to the EU, called out the "political motivation" behind the decision of some European countries in taking a hardline approach towards the company [7]. However, the company has made deep inroads into the Asian economies with countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia signing up for network integration. The number is likely to increase, given how some of the African countries like South Africa have displayed interest in collaborating with Huawei. This puts a question mark over the existence of the D-10 “club” whose origin is based on the cooperation over the 5G technology.

The other challenge is to sustain the principles of liberal international order and push through democratic ideals amidst extremist tendencies. Ash Jain, who first floated the idea of a block of advanced democratic countries with colleague David Gordon and now heads the D-10 Strategy Forum at the Atlantic Council argued that “a commitment to democratic norms and shared values ought to be at the heart of the D-10 concept”, given the surge of populism in the West has forced a number of countries already in this bloc to face the issue of how to uphold these values [8]. Among the countries on the radar, India, the largest democracy in the world, is often cited of “particular concern” in the backdrop of its populist Hindu nationalist majoritarian government. Interestingly, the D-10 forum of the Atlantic Council does not include India but the European Union in its place.

A third challenge is keeping China in check, even though Britain denies the “exclusivity” of the group formed against China. An editorial in state-controlled Global Times lamented the idea of D-10 as an attempt to rally like-minded countries against China, adding that it aims to resurrect the ideological confrontation which served as the guideline of the Cold War era [9]. With the great power competition getting intense with every move, it will be difficult for the D-10 to adopt a unilateral approach to China, especially when the country is a leading trade partner with most of its members.

Despite promising prospects, the D-10 club is yet to materialise into a concrete forum to find solutions to global and emerging problems such as climate change, non-traditional security threats, free trade agreements and disaster management. It remains to be seen whether the ten leading democracies of the world can find a common ground and uphold the principles of multilateralism and international cooperation.

References

[1] https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-new-way-to-lead-the-free-world-11608053780

[2] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2020-08-03/council-democracies-can-save-multilateralism

[3]https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/10/g7-d10-democracy-trump-europe/

[4]https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-telecoms-security-law-to-protect-uk-from-cyber-threats

[5]https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55124236

[6]https://www.rcrwireless.com/20210702/business/south-korea-ends-may-almost-16-million-5g-subscribers

[7]https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/07/28/huawei-eyes-a-place-within-europe-s-digital-future-despite-5g-bans-in-some-countries

[8]https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/12/18/an-emerging-new-alliance-democracies/

[9]https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1215470.shtml

Pic Courtesy-Michael Dziedzic at unsplash.com

(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of CESCUBE.)