UK not biting on aspersions cast on Huawei

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was just speaking common sense on Tuesday when he talked about a possible future for China's telecommunications equipment giant Huawei in the United Kingdom, which is now planning to build its next-generation wireless networks.

"The British public deserve to have access to the best possible technology," he said in an interview with the BBC. "Now, if people oppose one brand or another, then they have to tell us what's the alternative, right?"

The remarks sounded like a polite rebuke of the US administration which has been putting immense pressure on the British government to ban Huawei from its 5G network on the unsubstantiated claim that the Chinese company poses a national security threat.

US officials have repeatedly warned they will stop intelligence sharing with any countries that use Huawei technologies. And earlier this week US national security and telecom officials met with their British counterparts in London in the latest attempt to dissuade them from using Huawei equipment.

The overbearing manner Washington is assuming in trying to intervene in another country's internal issue is nothing short of an insult. It is a sovereign country's own right to decide what's best for its national security and technological future.

So far two UK parliamentary committees have concluded there are no technical reasons to ban the use of Huawei equipment in the UK's 5G networks.

In a letter to the government, member of Parliament Norman Lamb said a ban on Huawei "would not constitute a proportionate response to the potential security threat posed by foreign suppliers".

"Banning Huawei would also reduce market competition, giving network operators less leverage on equipment vendors to demand high security standards," he wrote in July last year after the UK Science and Technology Committee, of which he is chair, concluded a public evidence session in which it interviewed security officials and telecommunications executives about Huawei's operations in the UK.

Andrew Parker, the head of the domestic Security Service MI5, told The Financial Times this month that he had "no reason" to believe intelligence sharing with the US would be harmed by the UK allowing Huawei to provide equipment for its 5G network, which suggests the US is casting aspersions on Huawei for reasons other than the national security.

The UK is standing at a crossroad that will decide whether it can establish itself as a 5G leader in Europe by embracing the best technology.

It should make its decision based upon the facts, rather than give in to the external pressure and constant fearmongering of the US, which seeks only to dent China's technology edge worldwide, no matter how disgracefully.