US politicians on one side of the aisle can scarcely contain their glee today as the UK moves to ban Huawei from its 5G networks, reversing its previous decision from just five months and two weeks ago.
UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced in the British Parliament today that Great Britain would be banning the Chinese telecoms company Huawei from its 5G infrastructure.
“From the end of this year, telecoms operators must not buy any 5G equipment from Huawei,” said Dowden, who added that there needs to be a plan to eradicate all traces of Huawei equipment in Britain’s 5G infrastructure by 2027.
In the US, politicians who warned nearly six months ago that allowing Huawei into the UK’s 5G networks would be a security risk have now today taken to Twitter to express their joy at the new decision.
One of the biggest critics of China, Huawei, TikTok, and big tech in general, Senator Josh Hawley called the move a “big blow to China.”
Back in January, Hawley tweeted that the initial decision to allow Huawei on Britain’s 5G networks was a “bad decision by UK and bad trend from our European partners. China is not an ally, it’s the biggest threat to our security in the 21st century.”
Meanwhile Senator Tom Cotton praised the UK for acting on cracking down on Chinese espionage.
Senator Jim Inhofe, for his part, was happy that the US could once again consider the UK as a less risky intelligence gathering partner.
Senator Rick Scott was all about praising privacy while applauding the fact that the Five Eyes can now do their spying while making it more difficult for the Chinese to be able to spy on them through vulnerabilities in Britain’s 5G infrastructure.
The list of US politicians heaping on the praise from the right has been continuing since the announcement was made.
Huawei as a company, on the other hand, believes that the decision to ban the Chinese telecom was due to Great Britain caving to political pressure from the United States, but the ousted 5G giant is hopeful that it can still continue to conduct business in the UK.
“Regrettably our future in the UK has become politicized, this is about US trade policy and not security. Over the past 20 years, Huawei has focused on building a better connected UK. As a responsible business, we will continue to support our customers as we have always done,” a company statement reads.
In January, US politicians took to Twitter to express their disdain over the UK’s decision to allow the Chinese telecom into Britain’s 5G infrastructure, which they believed would hurt relations between the US and the UK.
That decision was reversed on Tuesday.
For years, the US State Department has been warning its allies that the Chinese tech company cannot be trusted and that China’s Communist regime would have untethered access to all of their data.
The massive city-wide surveillance that collaborative sensing requires is a tremendous temptation for tyrants: perspective…
Innovation in software can lay claim to the very solutions that today have become the…
Rising from a decade of economic ambiguity, technological disruption, and the lingering specter of a…
Addressing disinformation has little to do with getting to the truth and everything to do…
After many years of relative stability, it seems clear we are now in a period…
A future cyberattack or software update could trigger a robot insurgency, according to a report…
View Comments
Sweden is doing the right thing to protect its telecom industry. These Chinese firms can't be trusted with National security or Intellectual property.