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In late January, the government of the United Kingdom announced that it had reached a decision on allowing Chinese technology company Huawei to provide infrastructure for what will be a national 5G network. The UK decision came amid intense pressure from the United States to disallow Huawei, which the U.S. intelligence community has described as a backdoor for Chinese intelligence; in 2018, several high-level U.S. intelligence officials said Huawei products could be used by China to conduct “undetected espionage.”
American pressure on London had been coming from the highest levels of government. On Thursday, the Financial Times exclusively reported on a phone call between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Johnson.
Trump lambasted Johnson for the decision to allow Huawei in, suggesting that U.S. pressure tactics—even against the country’s closest allies—are only set to intensify. Similar pressure exists on U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region. At the recent Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, India, Matt Pottinger, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, suggested that allowing Huawei into critical telecommunications networks was akin to allowing the KGB to provide similar p ..
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