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US: Decision to Exclude China from 5G Trials India's Own

The US has stated that India's decision to not include Chinese vendors in its upcoming 5G Trials is a sovereign decision on India's part.

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Hemant Kashyap
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US stated that India's recent decision of going ahead with 5G Trials without Chinese companies is sovereign. Furthermore, US expressed concern about China's ability to control, manipulate and disrupt India's telecom network via installed equipment.

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5G Trials Without China

Last week, DoT approved 5G Trials applications of Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and MTNL. However, none of them are using any Chinese tech, going instead for a mix of indigenous and European tech.

On Tuesday's daily new conference, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price, said that the decision was sovereign. He further expressed US' concerns, stating, "we are deeply concerned about the dangers of installing networks with equipment that can be manipulated, disrupted or potentially controlled by the PRC (People's Republic of China)".

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Price also talked about the potential risks involved with letting Chinese companies play in the market. "Allowing untested, untrusted telecommunication suppliers, like Huawei or ZTE, to participate in or to have any control over any part of a 5G network creates unacceptable risks to national security, to critical infrastructure, to privacy and to human rights as well," he said.

China regretted the decision in the follow-up to the announcement. Chinese embassy spokesperson Wang Xiaojian said, "we noted relevant notification, and express concern and regret that Chinese telecommunications companies have not been permitted to conduct 5G trials with Indian telecom service providers in India".

Wang further claimed that the move will hurt the Indian business environment and the Chinese companies' right to participate.

Incidentally, US designated Huawei and ZTE as "national security threats" last year. US said that the companies have close ties to the CCP. Further, these companies are broadly subject to Chinese law obligating them to cooperate with the country's intelligence services.

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