India Silently Excludes Huawei And Other Chinese Suppliers From The Country's Telecom Networks
India is gradually removing
Chinese suppliers from its telecommunications networks amid rising tensions
between the world's two most populous countries following the clashes,
according to a Financial Times report. Deadly border levels.
The target of this move
includes Huawei Technologies, but instead of a complete ban on the company as
some other countries have done, the Indian government is more likely to quietly
remove the existing device from the Chinese technology giant, FT reported.
India's telecom division
has banned 5G testing with Chinese suppliers and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's
administration is wary of Chinese investment in sensitive infrastructure,
according to the report.
However, New Delhi is
unlikely to officially ban Huawei or other Chinese equipment companies in the
event they receive a hard response from Beijing, the FT report quoted a senior
government official as saying that, adding that the government's mindset is to "Make
it harder than say it difficult".
India, the world's
second-largest mobile market with 850 million users, allowed Huawei to
participate in 5G testing earlier this year.
Huawei has been able to
secure key contracts with state-owned Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and BSNL. It
is not clear what will happen to these contracts.
India's stance against
Chinese technology companies changed after a deadly clash between Indian and
Chinese troops along the two countries' disputed Himalayan border in June.
Anti-China sentiment in
India has increased since the clash. ByteDance's TikTok, Tencent's WeChat,
Alibaba and Baidu browsers were among the 59 Chinese apps banned by the Indian
government.
India's move comes as
Huawei is facing increased political pressure in Western countries, from UK to
Australia, where it has been banned from supplying 5G suite amid concerns about
Beijing can penetrate countries' networks and other critical
infrastructure. Huawei has consistently denied that it allows Beijing
access to its customer networks.
Huawei is also facing
crippling sanctions from the US, which this month made it clear that Chinese
telecom companies cannot buy pre-sold chips from good semiconductor companies
like Qualcomm and MediaTek because they are related to core US technology.
In May, Washington extended
sanctions against Huawei by banning foreign chipmakers such as Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) from using US equipment to
manufacture chips for Chinese company. That move came after Huawei was put
on a trade blacklist by the US a year earlier.
No comments