US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has issued a humiliating warning to the UK that it could lose access to vital American intelligence if it does not distance itself from Chinese tech firm Huawei – before taking an apparent sideswipe at Theresa May.
After meeting Theresa May on a visit to London, Donald Trump’s top diplomat invoked the memory of ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher, asking: ‘Would she have allowed China to control to control the internet of the future?
Earlier he had stood alongside Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and warned that the US would not allow access to its secrets to countries who were not using ‘trusted networks’.
Washington is urging allies to keep Huawei out of sensitive infrastructure programmes, citing fears that the company may provide a route for China’s communist regime to spy on the West.
But Mrs May had reportedly gave the green light to the company bidding for work on ‘non-core’ aspects of the hi-tech 5G network at a secret meeting, overruling concerns from ministers including Gavin Williamson, who was later sacked as defence secretary over suspicions that he had leaked details of discussions.
Giving the Margaret Thatcher Lecture for the CPS think tank at Lancaster House in London, with Mr Hunt looking on, he said: ‘I know it is a sensitive topic but we have to talk about sensitive things as friends.
‘As a matter of Chinese law the Chinese government can rightfully demand access to data flowing through Huawei and (telecoms firm) ZTE systems.
‘Why would anyone grant such power to a regime that has already grossly violated cyberspace?’
Mr Pompeo today became the first member of President Donald Trump’s administration to speak face-to-face with the Prime Minister since last month’s National Security Council agreed to consider Huawai’s involvement
Later, giving the Margaret Thatcher Lecture, Mr Pompeo said: ‘Why would anyone grant such power to a regime that has already grossly violated cyberspace?’
Mr Pompeo said today: ‘I have great confidence that the UK will never take an action that will break the special relationship’
Mr Pompeo is the first member of President Donald Trump’s administration to speak face-to-face with the PM and Mr Hunt since last month’s National Security Council meeting.
Earlier, speaking alongside the Foreign Secretary at the Foreign Office this afternoon he told reporters: ‘I have great confidence that the UK will never take an action that will break the special relationship.
‘With respect to 5G, we will continue to have technical discussions.
‘We are making our views very well know. From America’s perspective each country has a sovereign right to make its own decision about how to deal with the challenge.
‘The US has an obligation to ensure that places where we operate, places where American information is, places where we have our national security at risk, that they operate inside trusted networks and we that is what we will do.’
He urged the British Government to be ‘vigilant and vocal against a host of Chinese activities that undermine the sovereignty of all nations’.
He said: ‘China peddles corrupt infrastructure deals in return for political influence.
‘Its bribe-fuelled debt diplomacy undermines good governance and threatens to upend the free market model on which so many countries depend.’
Mr Hunt told reporters no decision had been taken on whether the UK will permit Huawei involvement in its 5G network.
‘With respect to Huawei and 5G, we have not made our final decision as a Government,’ he said. ‘We are considering the evidence very carefully.
‘But we would never take a decision that compromised our ability to share intelligence with our Five Eyes colleagues, in particular with the United States.
‘We are absolutely clear that the security relationship that we have with the United States is what has underpinned the international order since 1945 and has led to unparalleled peace and prosperity, and the preservation of that is our number one foreign policy priority.’
The secretary of state arrived in Downing Street today after the Prime Minister had been warned that it would be ‘naive to the point of negligence’ to give Huawei further access to the UK’s network.
Julian Lewis, chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, made the warning at Prime Minister’s Questions, but the Prime Minister insisted that she would do nothing to jeopardise the UK’s national security.
‘We are taking a robust, risk-based approach that’s right for our UK market and network, and that addresses the UK national security needs,’ she told MPs.
Mr Pompeo leaves Downing Street today after meeting Theresa May, en route to holding a press conference at the Foreign Office with Jeremy Hunt
He is also holding talks with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt about UK/US relations and Iran, in central London
Mr Pompeo also met Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby at Lambeth Palace, where he signed the guest book
Gavin Williamson was sacked as defence secretary after being accused of leaking the Huawei information from the NSC to a newspaper – something he denies
‘The UK is not considering any options that would put our national security communications at risk, either within the UK or with our closest allies.
‘No-one takes national security more seriously than I do … I think my record speaks for itself.’
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, one of the Cabinet’s most ardent supporters of links with Washington, insisted there was ‘much less of a difference’ between the UK and US than some had claimed.
‘When it comes to dealing with China, our analysis of the problems doesn’t vary much from the United States,’ he said at a trade conference in London.
He insisted that no decision on Huawei had officially been taken by the Government and ‘we need to take into account the issues of an open trading system but we also have to ensure protection, particularly of our critical national infrastructure, and that we’ll do’.
Mr Pompeo warned earlier this year that the US will not ‘partner’ with countries that adopt Huawei systems.
‘We’ve made clear that if the risk exceeds the threshold for the United States, we simply won’t be able to share that information any longer,’ he said last month.
In talks at 10 Downing Street, Mr Pompeo is also expected to step up US pressure on the UK to isolate Iran.
He made a surprise visit to Iraq immediately before his trip to London, assuring Baghdad that the US opposes other states ‘interfering in their country’ and stands ready ‘to ensure that Iraq is a sovereign, independent nation’.
Mr Trump last year unilaterally pulled the US out of an international nuclear deal with Iran, but the UK and other European powers have refused to follow his lead.
Tensions have escalated in recent days as Washington deployed the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the Gulf.
Mr Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton said the move sent ‘a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interest or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force’.