The US-Sino Tech War Through the Eyes of Secondary States: An Analysis of the Reactions of the US Five Eyes Allies to Huawei’s 5G

This paper contributes to the scholarly debate on secondary states’ agency in the context of US–China technological competition by examining how members of the Five Eyes (FVEY) intelligence alliance, excluding the United States, responded to perceived security risks posed by Huawei’s 5G infrastructure. While all FVEY states ultimately excluded Huawei from national networks, the pathways to this outcome diverged markedly, reflecting differences in threat perception, institutional processes, political priorities, and strategic cultures. Australia acted decisively, leveraging established mechanisms to implement a hardline stance; Canada and New Zealand proceeded cautiously, balancing domestic politics and trade concerns; and the United Kingdom initially resisted US pressure before reversing course amid domestic scrutiny. These variations show that alliance cohesion cannot be assumed, even among long-standing intelligence partners, and that convergence in policy outcomes does not imply convergence in underlying rationale, though all members ultimately reached a de facto similar outcome. The study underscores the limits of US influence over allied interpretations of asymmetric technological threats and highlights the critical role of secondary states in shaping technological geopolitics. By illuminating how liberal democracies navigate security, economic, and political imperatives in asymmetric competition, it provides insights into the challenges of multilateral coordination over emerging technologies.