US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ramps up global pressure on Huawei

New York: While ramping up the international campaign against Chinese telecommunications manufacturer Huawei, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has declared Reliance Jio a "clean" network for not using Huawei's equipment, keeping it safe from Beijing's intelligence intrusions.

Listing Jio among the "world's leading" telecom operators, Pompeo told reporters on Wednesday that it was one of the "Clean Telcos" for spurning Huawei, which he called a part of the "Chinese Communist Party (CCP) infrastructure".

Stopping Huawei's incursions into next-generation 5G networks has become a priority for President Donald Trump and he has personally appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world leaders to ban the company that the US has linked to Beijing's intelligence gathering capability.

With a series on sanctions against Huawei that seek to bar other countries sharing US technologies with the Chinese company, Washington is pressuring them to ban it.

In a later statement he outlined the makings of a virtual global alliance against the Chinese company in a world troubled by the COVID-19 pandemic originating in China and Beijing's efforts to take advantage of it strategically and economically.

"The tide is turning against Huawei as citizens around the world are waking up to the danger of the Chinese Communist Party's surveillance state. Huawei's deals with telecommunications operators around the world are evaporating, because countries are only allowing trusted vendors in their 5G networks," he said.

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani had told Trump during his February visit to India that Jio was the only network in the world to not have a single Chinese component.

Jio is reportedly trying the 'swadeshi' route for 5G and has applied to the Department of Telecommunications for permission to carry out lab tests for the technology without third-party participation.

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