Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 16, 2020
UK should face ‘public and painful’ retaliation over Huawei decision, Chinese state media urges
February 12, 2020
Britain should face retaliation over its decision to ban Huawei from its 5G networks, Chinese state-backed media urged, dubbing the move “ill-founded.”
On Tuesday, the U.K. said the country’s mobile network operators will not be allowed to buy new Huawei 5G gear after Dec. 31. And the carriers must also strip out existing Huawei 5G gear by the end of 2027.
The decision marked a U-turn by London after initially allowing Huawei to play a limited role in the U.K.’s next-generation mobile networks.
January 30, 2020
New U.S. sanctions in May, aimed at cutting off Huawei from chip supplies made using American software and equipment, prompted an emergency review by Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). The organization said that “Huawei’s long term ability to build products using state-of-the-art technology has been severely affected.”
“The U.K. can no longer be confident it will be able to guarantee the security of future Huawei 5G equipment,” the country’s digital minister, Oliver Dowden, said on Tuesday.
December 12, 2018
Huawei urged the government to reconsider the move, adding it was “confident” the new U.S. restrictions “would not have affected the resilience or security of the products we supply.”
And while U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.K.‘s decision “advances Transatlantic security in the #5G era while protecting citizens’ privacy, national security, and free-world values,” Chinese state media urged retaliation.
“It’s necessary for China to retaliate against UK, otherwise wouldn’t we be too easy to bully? Such retaliation should be public and painful for the UK,” the Global Times wrote.
“But it’s unnecessary to turn it into a China-UK confrontation. The UK is not the US, nor Australia, nor Canada. It is a relative ‘weak link’ in the Five Eyes. In the long run, the UK has no reason to turn against China, with the Hong Kong issue fading out.”
The state-backed publication was referencing Britain’s criticisms of the new Hong Kong national security law that has stoked tensions between London and Beijing. (CNBC)