Due to national security risk, the Indian government agencies are aiming to restrict China’s Huawei from spreading its footprints across India. According to two government officials, the government of India ought to bring new procurement rules in June this year, to ban Indian mobile carriers from using telecom hardware made by Huawei.
“We cannot prioritise economic gains if an investment poses national security risks,’’ said one of the government officials.
“We have started giving some approvals to investment proposals even from China, but we will not give any approvals in sectors like telecom infrastructure and financials,” said one of the senior officials in a conversation with Reuters.
The reason why New Delhi is avoiding China’s technology firms to enter into technology equipment contracts is that India is skeptical about the Chinese firm’s intention for the past few years.
Before India, the United States and Europe had already raised the flag over China’s Huawei. Donald Trump’s administration raised the issue of national security regarding Huawei leading to a global campaign against China’s firm. “Huawei, an arm of People Republic China, surveillance state, is trading on the innovations and reputations of leading US and foreign companies,” said Mike Pompeo, the then secretary of the state of the United States.
According to BBC, the parliamentary inquiry committee of the United Kingdom claimed that there is ‘clear evidence of collusion between Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party. The report talks about the venture businessman who claimed the Chinese government had financed the growth of Huawei with some $75billion over the past three years.
The telecom department of India said that after June 15 telecom carriers can only purchase specified types of apparatus from government-approved sources, and New Delhi is looking to create a “no procurement” blacklist.
The officials also confirmed that it’s highly unlikely that New Delhi is going to overturn the decision to ban Chinese apps, or will give a further nod to China’s companies to bid for stakes in state-run firms, such as Bharat petroleum and Air India.
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Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are said to be collaborators with Huawei by using its gear. Therefore, the blockage is directly going to affect Indian telecom who heavily relies on China’s firms.
Recently, Airtel, an Indian telecom company went ahead and signed a contract with Huawei worth 300 crores rupees. Airtel’s move comes when the malpractices of Huawei are well- known globally. The United Kingdom, Italy, Canada all banned Huawei due to the risk factor it possesses.
Earlier, in April 2020, the Government of India launched a new FDI policy “curbing opportunistic takeover/ acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 problems,” said the press statement. New FDI guidelines will check the Chinese investments in the Indian firms.