China Slams UK’s Ban on Huawei

By Staff, Agencies

China slammed US President Donald Trump’s remarks about personally convincing the UK government to ban Chinese technology giant Huawei’s 5G network equipment, saying this shows that the ban is politically motivated and has nothing to do with security.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said during a daily news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday that the comment showed that commercial and trade matters had been politicized.

Relatively, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the government’s decision to ban Huawei from Britain’s 5G network from the end of 2027 on Tuesday.

Shortly afterwards, Trump claimed he had been responsible for that decision.

“We convinced many countries, many countries, I did this myself for the most part, not to use Huawei, because we think it is an unsafe security risk,” Trump said. “It’s a big security risk and I talked many countries out of using it. If they want to do business with us, they can’t use it.”

Hua said Trump’s comments proved that the UK’s decision “is not about national security but political manipulation.”

She said China would take all the necessary measures to safeguard its interests following the British decision.

“China will fully and solemnly assess this matter, and will take a series of necessary measures to safeguard Chinese companies’ legitimate rights and interests,” Hua said.

“Any decisions and actions [by Britain] must come at a cost,” the Chinese official added, without elaborating.

She said Britain acted “in coordination with the US to discriminate against, suppress, and eliminate” Huawei, accusing London of becoming “America’s dupe.”

The ban came nearly two weeks after London described Huawei as a potentially hostile state entity.

Huawei — considered the world leader in superfast 5G equipment and the world’s number two smartphone producer — has been under relentless pressure from Washington, which has lobbied allies worldwide to avoid the company’s telecom gear over alleged security concerns in a wider US-China trade war.

Trump’s administration blacklisted the telecom giant to block the company from getting any US telecom equipment contracts and prevent the transfer of American technology to the Chinese firm.

Washington claims Huawei helps Beijing spy on communications from the countries that use its products and services. Both the company and the Chinese government have rejected that allegation.