Jason Van der Schyff
The race to 6G isn’t just about bandwidth. It’s about control over spectrum, standards, supply chains and the values underpinning tomorrow’s infrastructure. If 5G taught us anything, trust and interoperability need to be built in from the start.
The Indo-Pacific is already the world’s most contested connectivity environment. Through submarine cables, cloud platforms and national 5G rollouts, governments are already making decisions that will shape how their citizens communicate, how their economies function and who sets the rules. The shift to 6G only sharpens that contest.
Reporting from the Financial Times makes clear that China is moving fast. Beijing is systematically excluding European vendors from its domestic telecommunications networks. Ericsson and Nokia, already reduced to a 4 percent market share, now face opaque security reviews that stretch for months. The message is that foreign firms aren’t welcome, while domestic vendors are being positioned as the only trusted suppliers for national infrastructure. They are backed by policy, shielded from competition and expected to dominate the market at home and abroad.
Beijing has framed these moves as a national security measure. So, it’s fair to ask, is the Indo-Pacific applying the same standard of care?
Australia’s decision to exclude Huawei from 5G was never just about one vendor. It reflected a broader understanding that infrastructure choices carry long-term strategic weight. That same principle should guide how we engage with 6G.
We are not starting from scratch. As I wrote recently, Australia’s trusted-tech positioning in the Pacific is being reinforced through investments in subsea cables, digital resilience and shared cyber capacity. That playbook, built on transparency, partnerships and presence, should now be applied to 6G. The decisions being made today will shape how the region connects for decades.
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