The United Kingdom draws up a 3-year plan to completely remove Huawei from its 5G networks
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It seems that Huawei has entered the worst phase since its inception. The Chinese mobiles to 5G networking giant has been under the export ban to the United States since 2019 which has been extended to 2020. Now it seems Huawei’s worries are increasing. United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is reportedly planning to dramatically scale back Huawei’s involvement in Britain’s 5G network.
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Huawei has signed a deal with the United Kingdom in January that allowed Huawei to play a limited role in building the UK’s 5G infrastructure. However, the new plans seem to boot out Huawei entirely from the UK’s 5G network.
The Prime Minister, in January had granted Huawei a limited role in supplying kit for the UK’s 5G networks, while capping Huawei’s market share to 35 percent. The rules also banned the use of the company’s equipment in the critical core of mobile networks where data is stored and routed.
Since then much has changed. In March, PM’s party rebel had proposed an amendment designed to ban Huawei from UK networks completely which was narrowly defeated in the parliament. The PM is also under pressure from President Trump who wants to completely ban Huawei from entering into the technology space in the Western hemisphere.
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Johnson earlier reportedly instructed civil servants to make plans to end the UK’s reliance on China for vital medical supplies and other strategic imports. “(Johnson) still wants a relationship with China but the Huawei deal is going to be significantly scaled back,” the Telegraph quoted a source as saying. “Officials have been instructed to come up with a plan to reduce Huawei’s involvement as quickly as possible.”
The coronavirus pandemic seems to have a big say in Britain’s capping of Huawei wings. A government source stated that the original deal “was struck before the pandemic hit, but coronavirus has changed everything”. The Chinese government is already under fire for coronavirus spreading all over the globe. The pandemic which began in China spread quickly to other parts of the world, crippling economies, and countries with it.
The banning has a lot to do with the upcoming Johnson trip to the US for the G7 summit in June, where he expects to hold trade talks with US President Donald Trump amidst increasingly contentious Brexit negotiations with the EU.
