The UK must weigh its ties to the US and Australia against the value of Chinese friendship

It may sound like an argument about technology, but in reality it is a battle of geopolitics. Should Brexit Britain yield to pressure from the US and ban Chinese hi-tech manufacturer Huawei from supplying kit to British mobile phone companies?

Or should the UK keep the door open to China – and benefit not just from cheaper technology but across the economy in sectors such as nuclear power, where the world’s most populous country has shown it is willing to invest.

Concerns about Huawei have been lingering for years. The company was once allowed to supply BT equipment a decade and half ago, partly because intelligence agency GCHQ has long believed it can contain any risk as long as the company’s technology is used judiciously.

George Osborne was keen for Huawei to remain in the following years. The former chancellor once endorsed a company investment decision by the firm saying: “There are some western governments that have blocked Huawei from making investments. Not Britain.”

But the attitude of the US has hardened. The vice-president, Mike Pence, has repeatedly criticised China in recent months. In February, he singled out Huawei, telling the Munich security conference that “Beijing’s vast security apparatus” has “access to any data that touches their networks or equipment”.

The US began lobbying intelligence partners – the Five Eyes network that includes the UK as well as Australia, Canada and New Zealand – to join in. Australia banned Huawei – and another Chinese supplier, ZTE – from 5G technology in August last year.

Huawei insists it is independent and that it has worked successfully with western partners for a decade and a half. It is a private firm, started in 1987 (although the US points out its founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a former army officer) and is partly owned by 80,000 of its 180,000 employees.

This month, China made a complaint to the World Trade Organization about Australia’s action, saying it was “obviously discriminative”. Australia responded by saying its position could be defended under international trade law.

It is a hot debate in Britain’s security and political community, at a time when the country hopes to strike post-Brexit trade deals with the US and Australia. Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the foreign affairs committee, warned: “Allowing Huawei into the UK’s 5G infrastructure would cause allies to doubt our ability to keep data secure and erode the trust essential to Five Eyes cooperation.”

Much will depend on the detail of where Huawei technology can be used following May’s decision in principle; whether supplying antennas, for example, can be considered part of the core network. GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre has stopped short of an outright ban, although its warning of last month of “significant technical issues in Huawei’s engineering processes” was hardly reassuring.

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There are wider considerations too. When May came into office in 2016 she ordered a review of China’s involvement in the building of the Hinkley Point nuclear plant, where China General Nuclear (CGN) is a junior partner to France’s EDF. But May approved the deal, and CGN wants to build more nuclear plants in the UK at a time when others have pulled out.

Britain has the dilemma of having to decide how far to take advantage of expanding Chinese capital and knowhow at a point where the Brexit impasse has weakened it internationally. Ironically, May is herself so weak that the decision of the private meeting of the National Security Council leaked immediately.

But the underlying argument about the UK’s long-term relationship with China in technology and elsewhere will continue long after she has left Downing Street.