India unlikely to ban Huawei’s 5G equipment

NEW DELHI: India is unlikely to ban China’s Huawei from selling 5G equipment in the country, in a reversal of its earlier stance, despite the US calling for a boycott over espionage concerns. Indian officials now say the telecom gear maker can’t be singled out in matters of security, especially since its rivals also source key components from China.

Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan had told ET in mid-September that Huawei was being excluded from a list of firms invited to partner with the government for 5G trials. However, about a fortnight later, Huawei said the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has invited it to participate in the programme. DoT hasn’t officially commented on the matter.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently visited China, where he pledged to deepen economic ties between the two nations.


“Only Australia, New Zealand and Japan have followed (the US call). Germany and the European countries haven’t banned Huawei. Why should we ban?” said a senior government official. “To top it all, most telecom equipment providers source their supplies, especially chips, from China. The equipment providers themselves might not know if there is spyware in their products.”

Telecom equipment providers such as Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia source parts from China but both say they have tight controls and security protocols in place.

The official cited above said spyware was known to have been found even in components sourced from non-Chinese firms, without giving details.

“So, we don’t really have a case against the Chinese equipment makers,” the official said, adding that India needed to urgently establish its own security testing standards and subject all telecom gear, whether domestically made or imported, to a rigorous examination.

While it would take some time to put standards in place, the government could invoke a clause in the telecom licence conditions to check imported gear for security integrity.

“Government officials/experts can be sent to the manufacturing facilities of the telecom equipment makers across the globe to check for the design and also test the components which are being imported into India,” the official said.

Huawei, and rival ZTE to a lesser extent, have come under global scrutiny after the US raised security concerns regarding 5G equipment, given their perceived proximity to the Chinese government. The US has asked its allies to ban 5G gear from Huawei. Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia have acquiesced. Huawei has now sought evidence from the US and accused other governments of wrongdoing, and has said that such information, if any, should at least be disclosed to carriers. Indian mobile phone firms recently backed Huawei, which has cornered a big chunk of the Indian market due to lower prices.

While India has been suspicious of Chinese gear makers in the past as well, there is no fresh instance to “point fingers at them now,” said the first official cited above.

In 2009-10, the government had for several months unofficially barred telcos from importing and using telecom equipment from Chinese companies on suspicion that they may spy on sensitive communications. The unofficial ban was eased after the gear makers agreed to more stringent testing rules. “We won’t be making any such move which would vitiate the atmosphere as we haven’t found any instance of malware or spyware in Huawei’s equipment,” a third senior official said.

Another official said that by banning the Chinese equipment maker, India would only become more vulnerable to a few other telecom gear makers, who could hold the country to “ransom”. Private labs to test all telecom equipment are being set up across the country, the first official said. Telecom minister Manoj Sinha inaugurated a facility in Bengaluru last month that will establish test criteria and accredit these private labs.