U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to ban Huawei from Britain’s 5G network on Tuesday, angering China but delighting U.S. President Donald Trump by signaling that the world’s biggest telecoms equipment maker is no longer welcome in the West.
Trump has repeatedly asked London to ban Huawei which Washington calls an agent of the Chinese Communist state.
Huawei denies it spies for China and has said the United States wants to frustrate its growth because no U.S. company could offer the same range of technology at a competitive price.
Following is the approach to Huawei that has been taken by a number of other countries:
United States
On June 30, the Federal Communications Commission formally designated Huawei and fellow Chinese company ZTE Corp as posing threats to U.S. national security, a declaration that bars U.S. firms from tapping an $8.3 billion government fund to purchase equipment from the companies.
In May, the Trump administration had moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei from global chipmakers.
Australia
Australia banned Huawei from supplying equipment for a 5G mobile network in 2018.
Huawei had originally struck a deal to lay undersea cables to bring high-speed internet to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, but in 2018 Australia decided to fund and build the infrastructure itself.
New Zealand
New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network together with Australia, the United States, Britain and Canada, blocked service provider Spark from using Huawei 5G equipment in 2018.
Spark said last November it would keep Huawei on its three-company list of preferred 5G equipment suppliers along with Finland’s Nokia and Samsung Electronics of South Korea.
Canada
Two of Canada’s largest telecoms firms teamed up in June with Sweden’s Ericsson and Nokia to build 5G networks, ditching Huawei for the project.
Canada, which is reviewing security implications of 5G networks, has yet to decide on allowing Huawei to provide equipment for them.
European Union
In January, the European Union said countries can either restrict or exclude high-risk 5G vendors from core parts of their telecoms networks, a move targeting Huawei but falling short of a U.S. call for a complete ban.
Germany
The German government is not expected to make a decision before September on rules on installing components in the future 5G mobile communications network.
Deutsche Telekom, Huawei’s largest customer in Europe, has argued strongly against any blanket bans on individual foreign vendors.
France
The head of French cybersecurity agency ANSSI has ruled out a total ban on Huawei equipment for 5G networks in a newspaper interview, but said French telecoms companies were being encouraged to avoid switching to the Chinese company.
Italy
In early July, Huawei defended its record as a private-sector infrastructure group following reports Italy was considering excluding it from building its planned 5G network over security concerns.
Singapore
Singapore’s biggest wireless network operators chose Nokia and Ericsson in June over Huawei to build the main 5G networks in the city-state.