US secretary of state again calls on UK to resist Huawei’s efforts to gain access to 5G network

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has invoked Margaret Thatcher as he appealed to the Conservative right to take a firmer line with China, again urging the UK to resist efforts by Huawei to gain access to Britain’s new 5G network.

Insisting he felt duty-bound to raise sensitive issues with close partners, Pompeo said the telecoms company was, as a matter of Chinese law, required to bow to Beijing’s demands for access to its networks, adding he could see no circumstances in which the west should allow itself to become so vulnerable.

In a speech in London, he claimed China was intent on dividing the west through the use of technology.

Referring to the late former prime minister, he said: “Ask yourself: would the Iron Lady be silent when China violates the sovereignty of nations through corruption or coercion?”

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo warns UK over Huawei and 5G - live news Read more

He added: “Insufficient security will impede the United States’ ability to share certain information within trusted networks. This is just what China wants: to divide western alliances through bits and bytes, not bullets and bombs.”

Pompeo was speaking in London where he had discussions with the prime minister, Theresa May, and the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

The chief topic in the talks was the British government’s decision to allow Huawei limited access to 5G networks, although the Iran nuclear deal and planning for a post-Brexit free trade deal were also discussed.

The US has been telling its allies not to use Huawei’s equipment because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying, accusations the company has categorically denied.

Pompeo said: “The United States has an obligation to ensure that places where we want to operate, places where American information is, places where we have our national security resident, they operate inside trusted networks.

“With respect to 5G, we continue to have technical discussions, we’re making our views very well known. From America’s perspective, each country has a sovereign right to make its own decision about how to deal with the challenge.”

Hunt stressed the UK would never take a decision that undermined the UK’s special relationship with the US, or that undermined the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. “Britain would “never take a decision that compromised our ability to share intelligence” with its close allies, he said.

Q&A What is Huawei and why is its role in 5G so controversial? Show Hide Fast-growing Huawei is arguably China’s first global multinational. The Shenzhen-based company makes mobile phones, base stations and the intelligent routers that facilitate communications around the world. But its success increasingly concerns the US, which argues Huawei is ultimately beholden to the Chinese Communist party and has the capability to engage in covert surveillance where its equipment is used. Huawei is by some distance the world’s largest supplier of telecoms equipment with an estimated 28% market share in 2019. It was also the second largest phone maker in 2019, after Samsung and ahead of Apple. But Australia banned Huawei from 5G in 2018, with its spy agencies declaring they were worried the company could shut down power networks and other parts of its infrastructure in a diplomatic crisis. Trump banned US companies from working with Huawei last year and has strenuously lobbied others to follow suit, venting “apoplectic fury” in a phone call to Boris Johnson after the UK agreed to allow the Chinese company into 5G. The company had successfully targeted the UK early on. It has supplied BT since 2003 and gradually expanded to the point where it agreed to create a special unit in Banbury, known as the Cell, where the spy agency GCHQ could review and monitor its software code. Vodafone is another key customer. Britain’s intelligence agencies said in January that any Huawei risk could be managed as long as the company was not allowed to have a monopoly. As a result, Boris Johnson concluded Huawei’s market share should be capped at 35% for forthcoming high-speed 5G networks. In July 2020 the UK position changed, and it was announced that Huawei is to be stripped out of Britain’s 5G phone networks by 2027. Oliver Dowden, the UK culture secretary, also announced that no new Huawei 5G kit can be bought after 31 December 2020 – but said that older 2G, 3G and 4G kit can remain until it is no longer needed. Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

At a press conference with Hunt earlier on Wednesday, Pompeo criticised Jeremy Corbyn over his support of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.

Asked about the Labour leader’s position, Pompeo said: “It is disgusting to see leaders in not only the United Kingdom but in the United States as well who continue to support the murderous dictator Maduro.”

Speaking at the same event, Hunt criticised the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, for supporting Maduro.

Pompeo renewed his criticisms of Labour later on Wednesday when he was asked in a TV interview if Washington was seeking to interfere in Venezuela.

“Yes, well, providing food for starving children isn’t interference. It’s what we do. It’s in our deepest traditions of humanitarian assistance,” he told Sky News.

“The interference has taken place. The Cubans are there. They have interfered. So I hope Mr Corbyn will ask the Cubans to cease their interference in Venezuela.”

A Labour spokeswoman said the party’s position on Venezuela was to call for no foreign interference in the country. “We oppose outside interference in Venezuela, whether from the US or anywhere else: the future of Venezuela is a matter for the Venezuelans,” she said.

Separately, the culture secretary, Jeremy Wright, said it was still possible the roll-out of 5G networks in Britain could be delayed by a review into telecoms equipment. “The primary intention of this process is to get the security of the network right,” he said.

Pompeo said the issue was not just a technical dispute, but a matter of profound geopolitical importance requiring an assessment in the round of an authoritarian regime that is integrated into the western economy in a way Russia had never been.

He said Britain had to be “vigilant and vocal against a host of Chinese activities that undermine the sovereignty of all nations”.

Pompeo said the Arctic north must not go the same way as the South China Sea, and hit out at the way China used the corruption and debt-trap diplomacy inherent in the Belt and Road scheme to drag countries into its orbit.

“China peddles corrupt infrastructure deals in exchange for political influence,” he said. “Its bribe-fuelled debt-trap diplomacy undermines good governance and threatens to upend the free market economic model on which so many countries depend.”

Despite the differences in the special relationship, he vowed the UK would be at the front of the queue for any free trade deal if it left the EU. He wished the UK “godspeed” in reaching a decision, adding the US would back whatever conclusion was finally reached.