US says 'Five-Eyes' intelligence alliance will remain in place despite Britain's Huawei decision

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confident of US and UK resolving their differences

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said yesterday that the 'Five Eyes' intelligence alliance would continue to work despite UK's recent decision to allow Huawei equipment in its 5G mobile networks.

Pompeo described Five Eyes as a strong intelligence sharing network and said he was confident that the US would be able to resolve differences with UK on this contentious issue.

"When you allow the information of your citizens or the national security information of your citizens to transit a network that the Chinese Communist Party has a legal mandate to obtain, it creates risk," said Pompeo, according to Reuters.

"I am very confident that our two nations will find a way to work together to resolve this difference," he added.

Pompeo arrived in London on Wednesday for talks with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on the Huawei issue.

Speaking to journalists on the plane to London, Pompeo described Huawei as "an extension of the Chinese Communist Party" and said that the UK must rethink its decision to allow Huawei in building 5G mobile networks.

"All the elements of the five eyes will work together on this to ensure that the systems are sufficiently secure," he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, the British government announced that it would permit Huawei in UK's 5G networks, although the role of the Chinese firm was restricted to only supplying non-core parts of 5G and gigabit-capable networks.

The government also capped Huawei's presence in the "non-core" network at 35 per cent.

For the past one year, the US government has been pressing its allies to ban Huawei from their high-speed 5G networks. It alleges that the equipment supplied by Huawei could be used by the Chinese government to spy on other countries.

US President Donald Trump also included Huawei to the Department of Commerce's Entity List in May 2019, effectively banning it from US communications networks.

Huawei, however, rejects all such allegations, saying that it has never been asked by the Chinese government to introduce back doors into its technology.

Vodafone, BT and other carriers in the UK have also supported Huawei involvement in 5G projects, saying it is the cheapest and most advanced supplier of 5G equipment and that banning the company would cost them millions of pounds.

Earlier this month, Andrew Parker, the chief of MI5, told the Financial Times he was confident that the US won't stop sharing intelligence information with the UK if Britain uses Huawei technology in future 5G mobile phone networks.

Parker described the intelligence sharing between the US and UK as "very close and trusted".

"It is, of course, of great importance to us," he said. "And, I dare say, to the US too, though that's for them to say. It is a two-way street."

In December, Boris Johnson said that he didn't want Britain to be hostile to foreign investment, before suggesting that the impact on intelligence sharing was critical to a decision on the issue.