The US government has placed Huawei on a blacklist which will limit its access to US suppliers.
Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary, US told Bloomberg Television the measures limiting Huawei access to U.S. components would become official on Friday. He added, President Donald Trump had given his department 150 days to establish a process to screen U.S. companies’ purchases of equipment from Huawei, and other equipment providers with which officials have concerns.
“The purpose we have in mind here is we think there is a significant danger to national security and to our foreign policy of the existing situation at Huawei,’’ Ross said. Huawei said in a statement, “This decision is in no one’s interest. It will do significant economic harm to the American companies with which Huawei does business.”
The US government has accused Huawei of facilitating Chinese espionage. The Justice Department is prosecuting Huawei over accusations of bank fraud and technology. In the last few months, Trump administration was trying hard to convince other countries not to use Huawei equipment in 5G networks as US officials have long feared the Chinese government could use Huawei’s equipment to spy on Americans.
Ina related development, as per a report by Guardian, Sir Richard Dearlove, who LED MI6 between 1999 and 2004 has said,“I very much hope there is time for the UK government … to reconsider the Huawei decision. No part of the Communist Chinese state is ultimately able to operate free of the control exercised by its Communist party leadership.” Dearlove added, “Therefore, we must conclude the engagement of Huawei presents a potential security risk to the UK.” He was referring to the provisional approval given to the use of Huawei technology for parts of the UK’s future 5G telecoms networks in a meeting last month.
If the stalemate between the American Government and Huawei continues it could hamper Huawei’s production of mobile phones as well as it may find it difficult to lay hands on Google’s Android Operating system and corporation from Qualcomm. Having said that, Huawei must have been anticipating such a scenario for a long time because it has developed its own Chipset and reports suggest they are even working on developing their own operating software to run smartphones.