BEIJING: China accused Britain on Wednesday of improperly attacking Chinese tech companies after the British government proposed a law to block market access to telecom equipment giant Huawei and other vendors that are deemed high-risk.
The foreign ministry gave no indication whether Beijing might retaliate if the law proposed Tuesday is approved. It would tighten security requirements for next-generation wireless and optical fiber networks and fine violators.
The Trump administration is lobbying European and other allies to avoid Huawei and other Chinese vendors as they upgrade telecom networks. Washington says Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, is a security risk, which the company denies.
“Without any evidence, the British side has repeatedly cooperated with the United States to discriminate against and suppress Chinese companies under the pretext of unfounded risks,” said a ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian.
Britain is “blatantly violating the principles of market economy and free trade, seriously damaging the normal operations of Chinese companies” and hurting trust between the two governments, Zhao said.
Huawei is at the center of US-Chinese tension over technology and security.
The Trump administration is trying to limit US market access to Chinese companies it says might collect too much information about users or pose other risks. They include video app TikTok, video surveillance provider HikVision and messaging service WeChat.
The law proposed Tuesday would formalize British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s July order that blocks Huawei from a planned fifth-generation, or 5G, network. Britain earlier gave Huawei a limited role but reversed that under US pressure.
China accuses Britain of discriminating with tech ban
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China accuses Britain of discriminating with tech ban
- The Trump administration is lobbying European and other allies to avoid Huawei and other Chinese vendors
Gordon Brown ‘regrets’ Iraq War support, new biography says
- Former UK PM claims he was ‘misled’ over evidence of WMDs
- Robin Cook, the foreign secretary who resigned in protest over calls for war, had a ‘clearer view’
LONDON: Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown regrets his failure to oppose Tony Blair’s push for war with Iraq, a new biography has said.
Brown told the author of “Gordon Brown: Power with Purpose,” James Macintyre, that Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who opposed the war, had a “clearer view” than the rest of the government at the time.
Cook quit the Cabinet in 2003 after protesting against the war, claiming that the push to topple Saddam Hussein was based on faulty information over a claimed stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
That information served as the fundamental basis for the US-led war but was later discredited following the invasion of Iraq.
Brown, chancellor at the time, publicly supported Blair’s push for war, but now says he was “misled.”
If Brown had joined Cook’s protest at the time, the campaign to avoid British involvement in the war may have succeeded, political observers have since said.
The former prime minister said: “Robin had been in front of us and Robin had a clearer view. He felt very strongly there were no weapons.
“And I did not have that evidence … I was being told that there were these weapons. But I was misled like everybody else.
“And I did ask lots of questions … and I didn’t get the correct answers,” he added.
“Gordon Brown: Power with Purpose,” will be published by Bloomsbury next month.
