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BERLIN – Germany does not want to follow the United States in a general ban on products from Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturers such as Huawei, but will continue to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis, a spokesman for the Economy Ministry said on Friday.
Relations between Berlin and Beijing have come under scrutiny since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which exposed the German economy’s reliance on Russia for energy and made officials wary of a similar dependence on China for trade.
Germany has come under particular pressure to crack down on Chinese telecommunications equipment makers after the US Federal Communications Commission last week barred approvals of new equipment from Huawei and ZTE because they pose an “unacceptable risk” to US national security.
A German economy ministry strategy document seen by Reuters on Thursday contains detailed recommendations to increase the level of control over the use of components from certain countries.
The paper mentions a law introduced in Germany in 2020 that sets high hurdles for manufacturers of telecommunications equipment for next-generation networks, such as Huawei.
Under that law, individual IT components or entire companies can be banned and declared untrustworthy if vendors make false statements, fail to support security audits, or fail to report or patch vulnerabilities in a timely manner.
The 104-page strategy document proposes to go a step further, allowing the banning of components and products made by suppliers in authoritarian states for telecommunications and IT, as well as other critical infrastructure such as transport or water and food supplies.
Asked whether it expected tougher rules or even a ban in Germany or the European Union, Huawei told Reuters on Friday it relied on a constructive, fact-based dialogue.
“The secure use of networks is independent of the provider’s country of origin and can only be ensured through global standards in international cooperation between industry and regulatory authorities,” Huawei said.
Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Germany was “threatening its own national security and the security of Europe” in its decision on Huawei. “Berlin has not learned from its reliance on Russia for energy and they are making the same mistake by allowing China access to their telecoms,” McCall added.
The German Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
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