(Adds dropped "to" in first paragraph)
* PM Johnson mulls banning Huawei from 5G
* UK to put national security first - minister
* Huawei denies it spies for China
* BT cautions over going too fast
By Paul Sandle and Guy Faulconbridge
LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson is
set to ban Huawei from Britain's 5G network in a landmark
decision that will anger Beijing but win plaudits from President
Donald Trump as the United States grapples with China's rising
economic and technological clout.
The United States has pushed Johnson to reverse his January
decision to grant Huawei a limited role in 5G, while London has
been dismayed by a crackdown in Hong Kong and by the perception
that China did not tell the whole truth over coronavirus.
Britain's National Security Council (NSC), chaired by
Johnson, will meet on Tuesday to discuss Huawei. Media Secretary
Oliver Dowden will announce a decision to the House of Commons
later in the day.
The immediate excuse for the about turn in British policy is
the impact of new U.S. sanctions on chip technology, which
London says affects Huawei's ability to remain a reliable
supplier in the future.
It is unclear how far Johnson will go on Tuesday. Operators
already had to cap Huawei's role in 5G at 35% by 2023. Reducing
it to zero over an additional two to fours years is now being
discussed, although some telecoms firms have warned that going
too fast could delay key technology and disrupt services.
Asked about Huawei in June, Johnson said he would protect
critical infrastructure from "hostile state vendors". Justice
Secretary Robert Buckland said on Monday the "priority" in the
decision would be national security.
The United States says Huawei, the world's biggest producer
of telecoms equipment, is an agent of the Chinese Communist
State and cannot be trusted.
Huawei denies it spies for China and has said the United
States wants to frustrate its growth because no U.S. company
could offer the same range of technology at a competitive price.
NEW COLD WAR?
In what some have compared to the Cold War antagonism with
the Soviet Union, the United States is worried that 5G dominance
is a milestone towards Chinese technological supremacy that
could define the geopolitics of the 21st century.
Angering China just as Britain extracts itself from the
European Union will put London firmly back on the side of its
closest ally, the United States.
It would also mark the end of what former Prime Minister
David Cameron cast as a "golden era" in ties with China.
China's ambassador to Britain said earlier this month a
U-turn on Huawei would damage Britain's image and it would have
to "bear the consequences" if it treated China as a hostile
country.
HUAWEI BANNED?
In January, Johnson defied Trump by allowing so-called
high-risk companies' involvement in 5G - including Huawei - to
be capped at 35%. He excluded such companies from the sensitive
5G "core", where data is processed, as well as critical networks
and locations such as nuclear and military sites.
Britain's major telecoms networks have said they need at
least five years, and ideally seven, to remove Huawei.
BT CEO Philip Jansen urged the government on Monday
not to move too fast on a ban, cautioning there could be outages
and even security issues if it did.
"If we get to a situation where things need to go very, very
fast, then you are into a situation where potentially service
for 24 million BT Group mobile customers is put into question -
outages," he told BBC radio.
Huawei has said the implications of the U.S. sanctions are
not yet clear, and it has urged Britain to wait. The Telegraph
newspaper said on Friday the government was expected to set a
deadline of 2025 for removing Huawei equipment.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Paul Sandle, editing by
David Milliken and Mark Potter)
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BT (BT.A)
