During the meeting, Chinese officials said there could be “reverse sanctions” on Indian firms engaged in business in China should India block Huawei because of pressure from Washington, one of the sources said, citing a readout of the ambassador’s meeting.

China’s foreign ministry said Beijing hoped India would make an independent decision on 5G bidders.

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“Huawei has carried out operations in India for a long time, and has made contributions to the development of Indian society and the economy that is clear to all,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.

“On the issue of Chinese enterprises participating in the construction of India’s 5G, we hope the Indian side makes an independent and objective decision, and provides a fair, just and non-discriminatory commercial environment for Chinese enterprises’ investment and operations, to realise mutual benefit.”

The Indian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Indian companies have a far smaller presence in China than other major economies. But firms including Infosys, TCS, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Reliance Industries and Mahindra & Mahindra have a foothold there in manufacturing, health care, financial services and outsourcing.

The main right-wing group tied to Modi’s ruling alliance, which has a long-standing distrust of China and promotes self- reliance in the economy, has stepped up criticism of Huawei.

In a letter written to Modi last week, Ashwani Mahajan, the head of the economic wing of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said there were concerns about the operations of Huawei in India.

“We as a country are not yet sure of relying on Huawei. Globally, the Chinese companies, including Huawei, are facing allegations that they ‘underbid’ projects, and position themselves and their establishment back home to snoop and enable them to shut remotely, if required be,” he wrote.

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Minister Prasad told parliament that six proposals have been received for 5G technology trials, including from Huawei. He did not name the others, but firms such as Sweden’s Ericsson Finland’s Nokia and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics are expected to participate.

A high-level group of officials, led by the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Indian government Dr K Vijay Raghavan and including representatives from the departments of telecoms, information technology and the intelligence services, has been looking into whether to open the 5G trials to Huawei.

The committee has found no evidence to suggest Huawei has used “back-door” programmes or malware to collect data in its current operations in India, the first source and another official in the federal telecoms ministry said.

The interior ministry, which is responsible for the security of the infrastructure, had issued no directive to curtail Huawei’s entry, the telecoms official said.

India should ignore US-China politics in making Huawei call

“We can’t simply reject them just because they are Chinese,” the official said.

One option that a tech expert at the government’s National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) has suggested is to ensure the hardware and software for the proposed fifth-generation network are not both sourced from Huawei.

The government should get wireless carriers who will be rolling out 5G services to use Indian-made software to drive equipment supplied by gearmakers such as Huawei, NSAB expert V. Kamakoti said in a recent internal presentation.

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