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.