While China-based Huawei is going through a rough patch in the western world, the manufacturer has been given the approval to start 5G trial in India, due to the atmosphere of political goodwill between the 2 neighboring countries.
However, it wasn’t easy for the company to enter the Indian 5G market. Whenever the government first sent out invites to global 5G majors, Chinese firms, like Huawei and ZTE were not invited. It took a protest by Huawei for the government to relent. Whereas Huawei has been invited, ZTE yet has not received an invitation.
The telecom secretary has asked Huawei to participate in the trials and has even complimented the manufacturer for developing the telecom sector in India. Others companies invited for 5G trials have Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco, NEC, and Samsung.
In a statement regarding this development, Huawei said:
As a delivering global supplier of telecoms equipment, we remain committed to developing trusted and secure solutions for our consumers. We continue to receive full support from the Government and industry partners alike. Having a proven track record of doing business in the country, we continue to work closely with the Government of India and other industry stakeholders.
Whereas India has not articulated its security concerns yet, however sources say that there’s an unwritten rule against Chinese investments in sectors what could early be labeled as ‘critical infrastructure’. The government has set up a high-level 5G forum, what has secretaries from telecom, science & technology, electronics & IT besides few experts.
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The development arrives at a time when the United States has asked its treaty allies and other close partners to refrain from using Huawei in their systems. The ‘Five Eyes’ – US, UK, Canada, Australia, and Fresh Zealand – joined in to restrict Huawei’s presence in their 5G systems. Whereas Germany and other European powers have issued their own restrictions on Chinese tech investments, Japan, which is a close ally to the US, is likely to follow suit.
Meanwhile, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and daughter of the company’s founder, is awaiting extradition to the US by Canada on US fraud charges related to sanctions-breaking business dealings with Iran.