UK allows Huawei to build 5G in blow to Trump

he United Kingdom’s National Security Council (NSC) on Tuesday said it would allow the Chinese telecommunications group Huawei to be a part of its 5G network, turning aside calls from the Trump administration that all equipment from the company be banned due to fears of spying by China’s government.

The U.K.’s NSC did vote to block all “high risk vendors” such as Huawei from involvement in secure “core” 5G networks, but it did not broaden the ban to cover its entire 5G network.

The exclusions on Huawei’s equipment cover all critical infrastructure, nuclear sites and military bases, and other sensitive parts of networks.

The NSC said it would allow a presence of “no more than 35 percent” of equipment from high-risk vendors like Huawei, which is one of the largest telecom equipment providers in the world, in peripheral networks.

The U.K.’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the National Cyber Security Centre noted in a joint statement that “the government is certain that these measures, taken together, will allow us to mitigate the potential risk posed by the supply chain and to combat the range of threats, whether cyber criminals, or state sponsored attacks.”

Huawei Vice President Victor Zhang said in a statement on Tuesday that he was “reassured” by the NSC’s decision.