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As US and allies shun China’s Huawei, all eyes on holdout Britain
- Britain’s largest mobile provider scrubs China’s Huawei from 4G network
- Follows warning from head of MI6 about potential threat Huawei poses to national and corporate security
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Hilary Clarkein London
Britain’s government may be asking itself the difficult question this week: what to do about Huawei?
The announcement Wednesday by BT, Britain’s largest mobile provider, that it was removing the equipment of the Chinese tech giant from its 4G cellular network, has taken some gloss off the much-heralded Sino-British “golden era” that would coincide with the UK’s departure from the European Union.
Earlier this year, Huawei hosted Prime Minister Theresa May in Beijing and promised to spend £3 billion (US$3.8 billion) on procurement in Britain to help boost UK export markets to China.
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The deal was heralded as a success for a post-Brexit UK looking to prove it is an important trading partner to the rest of the world.
That happened despite the UK coming under increased pressure to restrict Huawei from supplying its 5G mobile network.
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New Zealand, Australia and the US have banned the company over national security fears. Britain is a member of the so-called Five Eyes alliance and shares intelligence with those countries.
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