Yesterday we reported about the final decision from the UK’s government to determine whether to allow Huawei to participate in it’s 5G infrastructure within the region or not, the result has been negative against the Chinese telecom company which is now officially banned from participating in the development of 5G Network within the country.
The UK finally made the announcement today Tuesday that Huawei will be banned from the 5G network which is due to a mounting pressure from the US government over the UK to decline and outright ban Huawei and this decision will not be pleasing to the Chinese government but the US government already has it’s ways.
The relationship between Huawie and the Chinese government is said the underlying cause of this shift since the UK government is said to b having issues with Beijing.
The US government had accused Huawei of using highly-risky telecommunication equipment which can pose national privacy and security threat to the UK and that Huawei is being used as a spying tool by the Chinese government in the west meanwhile this claims had been endlessly denied by both Huawei and the Chinese government with Huawei stating it’s hardware are safe for use.
BIG: Chinese technology giant #Huawei banned from UK 5G network. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden: UK Govt is banning the purchase of new Huawei 5G equipment from 31 December and Huawei equipment already in the UK's 5G networks must be removed by 2027. pic.twitter.com/IvdvfKx83Q
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) July 14, 2020
“There’s no such thing as a perfectly secure network,” Media Secretary Oliver Dowden told the House of Commons, but he said that the U.K. had to make sure its system was “as secure as it possibly can be.”
With that announcement, Secretary Oliver Dowden announced that all new Huawei 5G equipment be banned in the UK starting from next year 2021 while the country will remove all the company’s existing infrastructure through to 2027.
With the ban, Dowden conceded that it will slow down the UK’s 5G network roll-out by two years as well as costing up to US$2.5 billion. The decision is reported to being an attempt to balance out both technology, politics as well as it’s impact on the end users in general.
“This disappointing decision is bad news for anyone in the UK with a mobile phone. It threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane, push up bills and deepen the digital divide,” Huawei’s U.K. spokesman Ed Brewster said in a statement.
With the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China, this is more of a politicized decision that is affecting technology as well as this is being the primary reason for the ban rather than being about security concerns.
Huawei will now conduct a detailed review of the decision and continue to work with the U.K. government to “explain how we can continue to contribute to a better connected Britain,” Ed Brewster added.
The U.K.’s widely anticipated decision came after a meeting earlier Tuesday of Britain’s National Security Council, which was chaired by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Meanwhile there had been a partial decision made back in January by Boris Johnson which is meant to put the UK at the center of both China and US whereby Huawei will be allowed to participate partially in the UK’s 5G network development but will not be allowed in sensitive core areas such as military and nuclear sites.
The decision on Tuesday meant a reversal of that initial agreement. Also you should remember that the US had increased Huawei’s sanction banning the company from using any American microchips which will make the company’s future technology unreliable since they will be using chips from unknown sources.
“Britain’s decision to protect its national security by banning Huawei from its 5G network is also a win for fair trade and human rights,” tweeted U.S. Ambassador to the U.K., Woody Johnson, shortly after the announcement Tuesday.
US and the UK are close allies for decades but then the UK had decided to embark on what it called a “golden era” where it would engage more with the Chinese government but then this happened.
While London has been a key U.S. ally for decades, just five years ago its government embarked on what it said would be a “golden era” of engagement with China. It now finds itself caught in the middle of this standoff just as it is attempting to strike out on its own by leaving the European Union, the world’s biggest political and economic bloc.
