UK ban on Huawei 'seriously damages' trust with China, country's ambassador says

Ban on China’s tech giant puts ‘Golden Era’ of commercial links under threat, suggests Liu Xiaoming

The UK’s decision to exclude Huawei from its 5G networks has “seriously damaged” trust between Britain and China, ambassador Liu Xiaoming has said.

Answering questions following an online speech to the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, Mr Liu said the UK was acting like the “junior partner” to the US, after president Donald Trump claimed personal credit for persuading Boris Johnson to overturn an earlier decision to allow Huawei involvement in the telecoms network.

And he suggested the decision may have brought an end to the “Golden Era” of commercial relations between the UK and China, asking: “How could you do normal business when the other side treats you as a hostile country?”

Speaking a day after Mr Johnson’s government announced a ban on UK telecoms operators buying products from the Chinese tech giant, and ordered existing kit to be ripped out of 5G networks by 2027, he said that the country’s businesses were now likely to find it difficult to invest in Britain.

Mr Liu said that the Johnson administration had “succumbed... to China hawks and China-bashers” who regard China as a hostile country.

And he said: “Britain can only be Great Britain when you have an independent foreign policy rather than... (when) you are just a junior partner of the United States.

“Look at what happened with Huawei. Look at what their secretary of state (Mike Pompeo) is saying after the decision made by the UK government. Everybody understands what the reason is behind the UK decision.

“(If) the UK wants to build a global Britain, to still exert a global influence, you really have to think deeply what kind of role you are going to play.”

His comments came after Mr Trump told a White House briefing: “We convinced many countries – many countries – and I did this myself, for the most part – not to use Huawei because we think it’s an unsafe security risk. It’s a big security risk. I talked many countries out of using it. If they want to do business with us, they can’t use it.

“Just today, I believe that the UK announced that they’re not going to be using it. And that was up in the air for a long time, but they’ve decided.”

Describing the UK’s decision on Huawei as “disheartening”, the ambassador said Mr Johnson’s move “undermines the trust between the two countries”.

“Mutual trust, mutual respect are really the basis for any relationship, not only between countries but between individuals,” said Mr Liu.

“When you see this company, a good company who have been here for 20 years and not only invested £2bn in this country, created 28,000 jobs and pays taxes and contributes greatly to the telecoms industry in this country and to the local community, that you simply dump this company, you purge this company, it is very disheartening.”

He added: “The way you treat Huawei will be followed very closely by other Chinese businesses. When mutual trust is undermined it will be difficult for our companies to invest.

“You don’t need the government to say anything. I think businesses can make their own conclusions.

“So, I think trust is seriously damaged on the country level, on the government level and among businesses.”

Asked whether the Huawei ban would bring an end to the “Golden Era” of Sino-British relations declared by former prime minister David Cameron when president Xi Jinping visited the UK in 2015, Mr Liu replied: “The Golden Era really needs the two sides to make efforts.

“The Golden Era was proposed by the UK side. When president Xi Jinping was here, the prime minister proposed we should build a Golden Era. We embraced this idea, we endorsed it, we agreed it and we worked together to build this Golden Era.

“This is the fifth year of the Golden Era and I thought we could celebrate the anniversary, but so many things have happened.”

Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to Britain (AFP/Getty)

Mr Liu said the Huawei decision was “not about a private company”.

“The big picture is about China,” he said. “Huawei really symbolises how you look at China, how you treat China.

“In the debate, we listen to all this rhetoric. One of the reasons for the UK decision was that they had to succumb to pressure from China hawks and China bashers. They regard China as a hostile country or a potentially hostile country.”

Mr Liu said the UK had “politicised the economic relationship” with China by imposing sanctions on a Chinese company and treating the country as “a rival and a threat and a hostile country”.

Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson insisted that the UK continues to seek a “constructive” relationship with China and said the Huawei decision was taken on the basis of an independent assessment by the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Asked whether Mr Trump was right to claim personal credit for the U-turn, the prime minister’s spokesperson said: “The reason for the UK’s change of position was the impact of the US sanctions which were announced in May. Those sanctions were like nothing we had ever seen before and led to the NCSC changing its assessment.

“The US sanctions made it impossible for the NCSC to be able to guarantee the security of Huawei equipment in the future.

“We remain committed to a constructive relationship with China. Yesterday’s decision doesn’t change that.”

The spokesperson stressed that Tuesday’s decision related to Huawei only and did not have implications for the involvement of Chinese firms in other elements of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, such as the construction of new nuclear power stations.

Challenged over whether the UK regards China as a hostile state, the spokesperson said: “We are clear-eyed about the relationship which we have with China.

“We believe that it is important to have a constructive relationship and to work together on issues of global importance such as the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“But where there are issues which we have concerns about – such as what has happened in Hong Kong – we won’t hesitate to raise those issues and take action we see as appropriate.”