Huawei Hopeful in Canada’s 5G Telecom Equipment Decision

Despite collateral damage from the US trade war with China, Huawei remains hopeful that it will still be able to sell 5G telecommunications equipment in Canada, explains a new Global News report.

Just a day after the UK became the latest member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing network to ban the Chinese firm from its 5G equipment, Huawei Canada’s vice president of corporate affairs Alykhan Velshi said that the company hopes that the Canadian government ongoing 5G review doesn’t get caught up in US-China geopolitical conflict.

“We see ourselves as being caught in the middle of the U.S.-China trade war. Canada is also unfortunately caught in the middle of it,” Alykhan Velshi, Huawei Canada’s vice president of corporate affairs, said in an interview on Wednesday.

“That is the context in which a lot of announcements and decisions are made, as the Trump administration is demanding that everyone pick a side whether it is actually in their interest to go all in on one side or that other.”

The UK recently announced that it plans to ban Huawei 5G equipment in the country, and Canada, the last remaining member of the Five Eyes network, is feeling the political pressure.

As the report explains: “The United States views Huawei as a security threat and says its equipment and technology would serve as a back door for China’s communist leaders and military to spy on other countries as they adopt 5G technology — a charge the company firmly denies.”

After the UK withdrawal from Huawei, the Chinese government accused the nation of colluding with the US to harm Huawei. Trump responded by announcing travel bans on employees of Huawei and other Chinese companies “that the U.S. determines are assisting authoritarian governments in violating human rights, including against Uighurs in western China.”

John Power, the spokesman for Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, didn’t specify when the country would make its decision regarding 5G equipment, saying that the government would “not compromise on matters of national security” but declined to reference specific companies.”