After the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan, the UK government has also banned mobile operators in the country from buying new Huawei 5G equipment after 31 December. The UK’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has also asked the carriers to replace all the Huawei equipment from their networks by 2027.
UK’s decision of banning the Chinese Telecom giant follows the sanctions imposed by Washington, which claims the company poses a security threat. It is worth noting that this decision will only affect the future equipment, and not the current 2G, 3G and 4G equipment provided by the company to the country’s telecom operators.
This would delay the 5G rollout in the country by a year, says the UK government. It would also cost the country £2bn. UK’s decision has delighted the Trump administration in the US and angered Beijing.
“We convinced many countries, many countries. And I did this myself for the most part – not to use Huawei. Because we think it’s an unsafe security risk, it’s a big security risk”, said US President Donald J. Trump.
As expected, though, the developments have elicited an angry response from Beijing. Reacting to the UK’s decision, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, said the decision has raised questions on the country regarding the whether the country will be able to offer a fair business environment to foreign companies. “Disappointing and wrong decision by the UK on Huawei”, he tweeted.
The UK government took this decision after its National Cyber Security Centre warned that the security of Huawei’s equipment cannot be guaranteed. However, Huawei believes that the UK’s decision is nothing to do with National Security but with Global Geo-Politics.
“I think this is … not about security, this is about trade,” tweeted the Huawei’s UK communications director, Ed Brewster.
