US Continues Attacks on Huawei

The US continued a global campaign against Huawei and its local peers. The reports are emerging of renewed pressure on authorities in South Korea and separate calls for European operators to replace cloud facilities supplied by Chinese vendors.

The US pushed for Korean authorities to fully subscribe to its so-called Clean Network initiative during a wide-ranging call between politicians from the two nations. The news agency stated SK Telecom and KT are deemed clean by US authorities, but LG Uplus still uses Huawei equipment. Korea maintains it is up to private companies where they source equipment. However, a spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry said it had agreed to work closely with US authorities on technological issues related to 5G security despite this policy.

In addition to its campaign related to operators’ 5G supply chains, the US is apparently trying to persuade operators in Europe to scrap cloud infrastructure supplied by Chinese vendors including Huawei. US representatives met with Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Hoettges and Masmovil CEO Meinrad Spenger in recent days to raise security concerns related to the use of Chinese vendors in data centre and cloud infrastructure. The reports come as the US unveiled an initiative designed to export its policies on security and 5G to emerging markets.