UK lawmakers accuse Huawei of ‘collusion’ with Beijing

There is “clear evidence of collusion” between Huawei and the “Chinese Communist Party apparatus,” a new report from U.K. lawmakers claimed. British members of parliament also suggest the Chinese telecom giant’s equipment could be stripped out of the country’s networks earlier than originally planned.

The latest comments from the U.K. will add pressure to Huawei, which has been blocked from key markets like Australia and Japan and is facing a number of sanctions from Washington that are aimed at cutting it off from key technologies like chips.

In July, the U.K. government announced that mobile network operators in the country would have to stop buying Huawei equipment by the end of this year. They would also need to rip out Huawei gear from their infrastructure by 2027. That decision was a result of the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Center emergency review of Huawei shortly after the U.S. put new sanctions on the Chinese giant that cut it off from key semiconductor supplies.

A separate inquiry by the British Parliament’s defense committee into the U.K.’s 5G security published Thursday, said that a 2027 timeline to remove Huawei gear from networks is “sensible” but a 2025 timeline could be considered under specific circumstances.

UK lawmakers accuse Huawei of ‘collusion’ with Beijing, say telco’s gear may be axed from British networks by 2025, CNBC, Oct 8