Huawei has not had a very good 2019 in the public relations department. It all began with the U.S.’s Department of Commerce that banned the corporation from doing business with U.S. companies. The directive is said to have come from White House and was further echoed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
While there are other intricate issues about the entire fiasco that have not been revealed to the public, news platforms have gathered that the U.S. simply does not trust the Chinese and their sudden ascent to the league of Big Boys. Several citations have been given as to why China, and by extension Huawei is ‘very dangerous.’
Rumour has it that Huawei installs backdoors on its mobile devices and networking equipment that allows China to spy on global citizens. Of course, Huawei vehemently denies the claims – but the accusers, namely the U.S. and its allies, stand their ground, citing that the corporation’s founder and former army general and the China government are great buddies.
The U.K. is a great ally to the U.S. This would theoretically imply that it should distance itself from Huawei because the enemy of your friend is your enemy too. That ground is still shaky for a variety of reasons.
Huawei, for instance, has a notable presence in Europe, especially in the networking space. It sells superior products cheaply and has since been a go-to technology provider for many carriers in the continent.
That relationship has been going on for a while and has since been replenished by Huawei’s upper hand in 5G technologies that should be the next big thing in the connectivity world. We, therefore, would expect the U.K. to find alternative providers for telecoms equipment providers, but that move is likely not going to happen after it was reported that the Kingdom would give Huawei access to its 5G telecoms networks.
The development was made official by senior government officials and security services. Access will, however, be limited to ‘non-contentious’ parts of the network. It is not known how the U.S. will respond to this move, but we can guess that the Trump administration will not be happy because Huawei is not allowed to get access to or build its 5G networks in the nation for the mentioned reasons.
On the bright side of things, Huawei is pursuing talks with U.S. companies over 5G licensing. The same negotiations have been explored in Germany, another friend of the U.S. Germany has since ignored the U.S. ban and will, therefore, work with Huawei.
