US backlash as Britain gives green light to Huawei

Britain has angered the US with a shock decision to involve “high risk” Chinese company Huawei in the rollout of 5G.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab defends the decision in the House of Commons. Picture: AFP

Britain has angered the US with a shock decision to involve “high-risk” Chinese company Huawei in the rollout of 5G.

The decision to brush aside concerns of two members of the Five Eyes security alliance — the US and Australia — prompted a fierce backlash. US Republican senator Tom Cotton said Britain’s decision was akin to “allowing the KGB to build its telephone network during the Cold War”.

“I fear London has freed itself from Brussels only to cede sovereignty to Beijing,” he said.

The US, which has banned Huawei from government contracts, had lobbied Britain not to deal with the company.

Liz Cheney, the third-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, said: “By allowing Huawei into their 5G network, (Britain) has chosen the surveillance state over the special relationship.”

Republican congressman Mike Gallagher said the ­decision meant “it would be ­impossible to achieve a gold standard US-UK trade agreement when you have gone through the brutal effort to claw back sovereignty from Brussels to give it to ­Beijing’’.

Bypassing Huawei would have involved a costly extraction of the Chinese company’s equipment from Britain’s 4G network and would have delayed the ­introduction of 5G.

Boris Johnson’s government instead sought a middle path, ­allowing Huawei to be involved in no more than 35 per cent of Britain’s 5G network.

The National Security Council had met on Tuesday morning and received advice from intelligence agencies including MI5 and MI6, which said Huawei’s involvement was a manageable risk.

British Foreign Secretary ­Dominic Raab told parliament “nothing in this review ­affects this country’s ability to share highly sensitive intelligence data over highly secure networks, both within the UK and with our partners, including the Five Eyes’’.

Mr Raab added that GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) “categorically confirmed that how we construct our 5G and full fibre public telecoms network has nothing to do with how we share classified data”.

It later emerged that ­Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had opposed the move, telling colleagues during the National Security Council meeting that China was a “friend of no one”.

The decision was criticised by other senior Tories. Bernard Jenkin said the decision represented a massive strategic failure. “What harsh and honest lessons will the UK government take from finding itself confronted with this dilemma?’’ he said.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said Britain was in a cyber war with China and the decision was a “mistake”.

Mr Raab admitted the difficulties of eliminating risk but said the government’s job was to “reduce vulnerabilities”.

“If we are to encourage the take-up of new technologies that will transform our lives for the better, then we need to have the right measures in place,” he said.

Writing in London’s Daily Telegraph, Home Secretary Priti Patel said Huawei had to be ­involved because “companies in the UK, the US and other ­friendly nations cannot deliver what we need”.

She added that without Huawei, the UK would be “stuck in the digital slow lane”.

Huawei spokesman Ed Brewster said there had been a lot of false claims about the company and “some of that is linked to low understanding about network technology and low understanding around China as well’’.

Ian Levy, technical director at the National Cyber Security Centre, wrote: “The international standards that define what a 5G network actually is allow you to do all sorts of things, and some of those things could lead to sec­urity or operational risks that can’t be mitigated. That doesn’t mean you have to do them.’’

He wrote that a 5G system involved a lot of small base stations as well as big ones, and the small ones would be on lampposts, bus shelters and other places that weren’t secure from interference “by bad guys’’.