Australia's decision to boot Huawei from being allowed to bid on a massive broadband network project can be viewed two ways.

The West, naturally, will say it's a prudent response to serious concerns over persistent Chinese hacking. Most Western governments, as well as defense contractors and developers of other critical technologies, have claimed China has been engaged in a longstanding attempt to obtain access to their computer networks.

China, on the other hand, will likely complain to the WTO that the moves are a semi-transparent attempt by the West to quash competition in the global marketplace.

However, Huawei has its history of issues. Cisco sued the company in 2003 for stealing millions of lines of its code; Huawei eventually deleted the suspect code from its products. In 2008, the US government put the kibosh on Huawei's attempt to acquire 3Com on national security grounds. Furthermore, Huawei's ties to the Chinese Army -- founder Ren Zhengfei was an army engineer in the 1980s -- are being seen as troubling.

This presenting an interesting scenario for China. While the West has for the most part looked the other way on worker conditions and abuses in China, it is taking a harder line when it comes to Chinese penetration of the West. Until China becomes more transparent in its goals, the tension will only grow.