As Canberra, Australia’s sleepy bush capital, was gripped by yet another political leadership crisis this month that later overthrew former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, an unexpected media release was dropped on the capital’s distracted media.
Amid the chaos, the government had finally taken a much-anticipated decision on the involvement of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in the build of Australia’s next piece of critical national infrastructure, its 5G network. Informed by a national security review that had been undertaken, then acting home affairs minister — and now prime minister — Scott Morrison had banned Huawei.
The text of the announcement worked hard to avoid stating this directly. Instead, you had to carefully read between the lines. But China’s state-run media agencies were quick to confirm the ban and get to work.