The one issue at stake that I can think of is the manufacture of the underlying hardware infrastructure. The risk associated with relying on hardware manufactur

The one issue at stake that I can think of is the manufacture of the underlying hardware infrastructure. The risk associated with relying on hardware manufactured in China for critical infrastructure seems to be of some concern for the US government. It's probably unlikely in any case, but importing Chinese-manufactured 5G modems for phone handsets would potentially pose an issue, so would using Chinese-made hardware for telecom infrastructure. I don't think this has any bearing on what telecom companies offer consumers, or those other aspects of the '5G race'. Nonetheless, falling behind Asia in developing this technology might have other consequences.