The Chinese government has said it has “strongly opposed” to the United Kingdom’s “groundless” ban of Huawei’s 5G kit.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying added that China will “take measures to safeguard” the “legitimate interests” of Chinese companies.
But President Trump welcomed the move.
“We convinced many countries, many countries – and I did this myself for the most part – not to use Huawei because we think it’s an unsafe security risk,” the US leader said.
Mr Trump made the comments as he attempted to increase pressure on Beijing by announcing an executive order ending preferential treatment for Hong Kong in response to a new security law brought in by China.
The UK’s digital secretary announced on Tuesday the country’s telecoms networks would not be allowed to buy new Huawei 5G kit from 31 December and all such equipment should be stripped out of mobile networks by 2027.
In addition, it wants BT’s Openreach and other broadband infrastructure providers to stop using Huawei’s gear in the rollout of full-fibre broadband within the next couple of years.
China’s ambassador to the UK said the decision was “not only disappointing, it’s disheartening”.
“The way you treat Huawei will be followed very closely by other Chinese businesses,” Liu Xiaoming added.
But the foreign ministry arguably used even stronger language.
“The UK side has used groundless risks as an excuse to co-operate with the United States… violating the relevant commitments made by the UK,” Ms Hua said.
The UK government said it had based its decision on the advice of security chiefs who had judged they could no longer mitigate the risks of using Huawei’s equipment in light of new US sanctions.
