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LONDON — Britain announced on Tuesday that it would ban equipment from the Chinese technology giant Huawei from the country’s high-speed wireless network, a victory for the Trump administration that escalates the battle between Western powers and China over critical technology.
The move reverses a decision in January, when Britain said Huawei equipment could be used in its new 5G network on a limited basis. Since then, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has faced growing political pressure domestically to take a harder line against Beijing, and in May, the United States imposed new restrictions to disrupt Huawei’s access to important components.
Britain’s about-face signals a new willingness among Western countries to confront China, a determination that has grown firmer since Beijing last month adopted a sweeping law to tighten its grip on Hong Kong, the semiautonomous city that was a British colony until 1997. On Tuesday, Robert O’Brien, President Trump’s national security adviser, was in Paris for meetings about China with counterparts from Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
Huawei’s critics say its close ties to the Chinese government mean Beijing could use the equipment for espionage or to disrupt telecommunications — a point the company strongly disputes.
After the British government announced its decision, President Trump took aim at Huawei during a news conference at the White House, saying the United States has “confronted untrustworthy Chinese technology and telecom providers.”
“We convinced many countries, and I did this myself for the most part, not to use Huawei, because we think it’s an unsafe security risk,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump also announced that he was issuing an executive order formalizing a declaration from late May that the United States would treat Hong Kong in the same manner as China rather than as a semiautonomous territory and would impose the same tariffs that it applies to China. He also said he was signing into law a bipartisan congressional bill that encourages sanctions against Chinese officials and entities that take part in the repression of Hong Kong, as well as financial institutions that do business with those parties.
The dispute over Huawei, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, is an early front in a new tech cold war, with ramifications for internet freedom and surveillance, as well as emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics.
The new geopolitical era is dawning.
“The democratic West has woken up late to its overdependence on a country whose values are diametrically opposed to it,” said Robert Hannigan, a former head of the British digital surveillance agency GCHQ, who is now an executive at the cybersecurity firm BlueVoyant. “Huawei and other Chinese companies present a real cybersecurity risk, but the primary threat comes from the intent of the Chinese Communist Party, as we see in Hong Kong.”
Huawei described the announcement on Tuesday as a disappointment and “bad news for anyone in the U.K. with a mobile phone.”
“It threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane,” said Ed Brewster, a spokesman for Huawei U.K. “Regrettably our future in the U.K. has become politicized; this is about U.S. trade policy and not security. ”
Until the latest turn of events, Britain had been welcoming of Huawei. In 2005, it was the first country to offer Huawei a foothold in Europe, now the company’s largest market outside China. Huawei financed university research and a charity started by Prince Charles. And just last month, Huawei announced plans to spend 1 billion pounds (about $1.25 billion) on a new research center in Cambridge.
The British experience shows the challenges nations face navigating the United States-China rift. In moving forward with the ban, Britain risks retaliation from China, one of its largest and fastest-growing trading partners, when it is trying to craft a more open trade policy outside the European Union. China’s ambassador in London, Liu Xiaoming, recently warned that Britain would “bear the consequences” of treating China with hostility.
Pacific Light Cable Network — a partnership involving Facebook and Google among others — from operating an undersea cable linking Hong Kong and the United States, in what was supposed to be the highest-capacity undersea Pacific connection for internet traffic.
The Trump administration asked the Federal Communications Commission to block the connection in Hong Kong, citing concern it “would expose U.S. communications traffic to collection” by China, through a Chinese firm operating where the cable landed. Instead, it wants the commission to approve only direct connections to Taiwan and the Philippines, undercutting China’s effort to make Hong Kong a key data transfer hub. It cited the new national security law for Hong Kong, which at the time was still being drafted.
“If Huawei is stopped in its tracks, that does represent a very important inflection point for China’s ability to achieve its objectives,” said Nigel Inkster, a senior adviser at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London who has written a book on the technology battle between the United States and China.
Mr. Inkster warned that the West risks provoking China if it feels more economically isolated. “There is a serious need to think hard and deeply about whether it is realistic to disengage from China totally in these areas,” he said.
Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/huawei-uk-5g.html
The move reverses a decision in January, when Britain said Huawei equipment could be used in its new 5G network on a limited basis. Since then, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has faced growing political pressure domestically to take a harder line against Beijing, and in May, the United States imposed new restrictions to disrupt Huawei’s access to important components.
Britain’s about-face signals a new willingness among Western countries to confront China, a determination that has grown firmer since Beijing last month adopted a sweeping law to tighten its grip on Hong Kong, the semiautonomous city that was a British colony until 1997. On Tuesday, Robert O’Brien, President Trump’s national security adviser, was in Paris for meetings about China with counterparts from Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
Huawei’s critics say its close ties to the Chinese government mean Beijing could use the equipment for espionage or to disrupt telecommunications — a point the company strongly disputes.
After the British government announced its decision, President Trump took aim at Huawei during a news conference at the White House, saying the United States has “confronted untrustworthy Chinese technology and telecom providers.”
“We convinced many countries, and I did this myself for the most part, not to use Huawei, because we think it’s an unsafe security risk,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump also announced that he was issuing an executive order formalizing a declaration from late May that the United States would treat Hong Kong in the same manner as China rather than as a semiautonomous territory and would impose the same tariffs that it applies to China. He also said he was signing into law a bipartisan congressional bill that encourages sanctions against Chinese officials and entities that take part in the repression of Hong Kong, as well as financial institutions that do business with those parties.
The dispute over Huawei, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, is an early front in a new tech cold war, with ramifications for internet freedom and surveillance, as well as emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics.
The new geopolitical era is dawning.
“The democratic West has woken up late to its overdependence on a country whose values are diametrically opposed to it,” said Robert Hannigan, a former head of the British digital surveillance agency GCHQ, who is now an executive at the cybersecurity firm BlueVoyant. “Huawei and other Chinese companies present a real cybersecurity risk, but the primary threat comes from the intent of the Chinese Communist Party, as we see in Hong Kong.”
Huawei described the announcement on Tuesday as a disappointment and “bad news for anyone in the U.K. with a mobile phone.”
“It threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane,” said Ed Brewster, a spokesman for Huawei U.K. “Regrettably our future in the U.K. has become politicized; this is about U.S. trade policy and not security. ”
Until the latest turn of events, Britain had been welcoming of Huawei. In 2005, it was the first country to offer Huawei a foothold in Europe, now the company’s largest market outside China. Huawei financed university research and a charity started by Prince Charles. And just last month, Huawei announced plans to spend 1 billion pounds (about $1.25 billion) on a new research center in Cambridge.
The British experience shows the challenges nations face navigating the United States-China rift. In moving forward with the ban, Britain risks retaliation from China, one of its largest and fastest-growing trading partners, when it is trying to craft a more open trade policy outside the European Union. China’s ambassador in London, Liu Xiaoming, recently warned that Britain would “bear the consequences” of treating China with hostility.
Pacific Light Cable Network — a partnership involving Facebook and Google among others — from operating an undersea cable linking Hong Kong and the United States, in what was supposed to be the highest-capacity undersea Pacific connection for internet traffic.
The Trump administration asked the Federal Communications Commission to block the connection in Hong Kong, citing concern it “would expose U.S. communications traffic to collection” by China, through a Chinese firm operating where the cable landed. Instead, it wants the commission to approve only direct connections to Taiwan and the Philippines, undercutting China’s effort to make Hong Kong a key data transfer hub. It cited the new national security law for Hong Kong, which at the time was still being drafted.
“If Huawei is stopped in its tracks, that does represent a very important inflection point for China’s ability to achieve its objectives,” said Nigel Inkster, a senior adviser at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London who has written a book on the technology battle between the United States and China.
Mr. Inkster warned that the West risks provoking China if it feels more economically isolated. “There is a serious need to think hard and deeply about whether it is realistic to disengage from China totally in these areas,” he said.
Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/huawei-uk-5g.html
