The Chinese ambassador to the UK has attacked Tory MPs of mounting a witch-hunt after they raised concerns about Boris Johnson’s proposal to allow Huawei access to the 5G network.
Liu Xiaoming praised ministers for their good decision to let the Chinese tech colossus to build some non-sensitive parts of the new infrastructure.
The Prime Minister has suffered mounting critique from within his party over the proposal amid concerns that the company, classified as high-risk by officials, could be a significant security infringement.
US President Donald Trump was apoplectic in a telephone call to Mr Johnson after the news of the decision, which disregarded Washington’s warnings over the firm.
Senior Tories including ex-minister Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis and Damian Green wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to phase out Huawei’s involvement in the network over time.
But Mr Liu stated that they’re incorrect and that he believed that what they were doing was a kind of witch-hunt.
Huawei is a privately owned company and has nothing to do with the government and the only dilemma is that they’re a Chinese company and he said that the Chinese government, which supports the firm with extensive state subsidies, was pleased with Britain’s decision but not 100 per cent satisfied because a 35 per cent cap on market share undermined free competition.
Boris Johnson decided, on the recommendation of security services, that any risks were manageable.
Most thought it was a great idea to stand alone from the European Union, now we’re having a little taste of things to come.
To be honest, most people don’t even realise their home routers are attacked loads of times per day and even if someone does hack in you can see who got in and from what IP address and that should be the start for security. All traffic is manageable and this is a phoney trade war between Donald Trump and China.
What should bother us is that Boris Johnson might use China to decimate what manufacturing we have left. He’s also renationalising the railways and he’s stopping the early release of terrorists, as well as standing up to America but we’ll see how long that lasts for.
Boris Johnson’s dilemma is that the United Kingdom needs to cut deals with both countries but in the current climate, that’s simply not feasible.
The US economy is assumed to be overtaken by the Chinese economy inside about 5 years, making it the top economy and if he upsets China, then that could have far-reaching effects on our economy, not only in terms of sales but in terms of cheaper imports as well.
