Last week’s poll: Huawei in the UK 5G network

It’s been another dramatic week in the Huawei saga, with Google declaring it will no longer provide Android updates for the Chinese firm’s phones. That decision followed an executive order from US president Donald Trump that effectively blacklisted Huawei, forcing US chip makers such as Intel and Qualcomm from doing business with it, and Google to remove support for its operating system.

Within the last day, however, the US has rolled back its sanctions on the company, granting a 90-day grace period for Huawei to continue doing business with US firms. It remains to be seen whether the US sees the company as a genuine security threat, or if it is simply in the front lines of the wider trade war simmering between Washington and Beijing.

Closer to home, former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove claimed that allowing Huawei to build critical UK telecoms infrastructure was a risk “we simply do not need to take”, no matter how small the chance of Chinese state interference. It’s a sentiment that the majority of Engineer readers agree with; a whopping 57 per cent were in favour of excluding Huawei from the 5G network over security concerns. An additional eight per cent cited China’s human rights record as the main reason for barring the firm, meaning almost two-thirds of respondents support a ban for one reason or another.