FRED DUFOUR
One of Britain’s largest telecom-infrastructure firms, BT, has confirmed it is removing Huawei equipment from key areas of its 4G network as concerns grow globally about the Chinese firm’s presence in critical telecoms infrastructure. The move comes a day after Canada arrested Huawei’s global chief financial officer in Vancouver, where she is facing extradition to the U.S. Meng Wanzhou is the daughter of the company founder Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the People’s Liberation Army with deep links to the Chinese intel apparatus. Britain’s top spy, the head of MI6, Alex Younger, recently said the U.K. would have to make “some decisions” about involving firms like Huawei in critical infrastructure, saying: “We need to decide the extent to which we are going to be comfortable with Chinese ownership of these technologies and these platforms in an environment where some of our allies have taken a very definite position.”