The United States “Clean Network” campaign has succeeded in booting China’s Huawei Technologies Co. out of critical telecommunications infrastructure in many countries.
The effort secured commitments from governments to exclude untrusted vendors from their 5G wireless networks. More than 50 nations, representing over two-thirds of the world’s economy, and 180 telecom companies had joined the “Clean Network” initiative.
The alliance includes 26 of the 27 European Union member states, as well as technologically advanced countries such as Australia, Canada, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan.
For years, the United States had sought to convince its allies to shun Chinese vendors such as Huawei and ZTE on national security grounds. The United States administration had warned about the risks of reliance on Chinese technologies, which were deeply embedded in the next generation of global telecommunications.
Last February, Huawei announced it had 91 commercial 5G contracts outside of China, with 47 of them in Europe and 20 in Asia.
