According to The Guardian, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the UK to reconsider its decision of allowing the use of Huawei equipment in the country’s 5G networks.
US Secretary of State Urges the UK to Reconsider Working with Huawei
Pompeo said the United States have not fully evaluated Britain’s move. He also added that the efforts of the US authorities to find alternative suppliers will provide the UK with an opportunity to change course in the future.
The United States has previously threatened to sever intelligence-sharing relations with allies, especially Britain and Germany; if they do not agree to ban Huawei. The United Kingdom, Canada, United States, Australia and New Zealand are all members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
Although he did not explicitly say whether the UK’s limited review of Huawei would affect the alliance or other intelligence sharing, Reuters reported that Pompeo affirmed that the United States would ensure that the network used to transmit “US information” is “trusted.”
Gizchina News of the week
According to Bloomberg, Canadian Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said that Canada will carefully study British policy and weigh “the measures they are taking to protect the digital environment” as part of an ongoing network equipment security review.
British government earlier this week approved domestic operators to use Huawei equipment in 5G networks
The British government earlier this week approved domestic operators to use Huawei equipment in 5G networks, but they set a 35% limit; which sparked operator protests.
British Telecom (BT) chief executive Philip Jansen warned that the decision to restrict Huawei would cost the operator about 500 million pounds over the next five years; most of which would come from the phase-out of 4G equipment. He said during a conference about BT’s third quarter of 2019 earnings report that most of the costs may spread over the next three years. He also added that Huawei was “very helpful”; and that despite some outstanding issues in the government’s decision, the decision allowed BT to expand EE’s 5G network as quick as possible.
So, so the situation appears to get increasingly more complicated for Huawei in the UK due to US pressures. Will they all find a compromise? We’ll probably know very soon!
