Pompeo highlights 'real risk' posed by Huawei

• Britain approved a limited but still important role for Huawei on Tuesday.
• Johnson told parliament his government will "do absolutely nothing to imperil our relationship with the US".

LONDON: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday he will stress to British officials the dangers of relying on technology from China's telecoms giant Huawei.

Pompeo has been doing his best to convince Prime Minister Boris Johnson that allowing China's Huawei tech giant to roll out Britain's next-generation 5G network would introduced a "real risk" to security.

Britain approved a limited but still important role for Huawei on Tuesday.

US officials said the possibility of China using its commercial presence to spy on Britain -- or even shut down the network -- could force Washington to stop sharing intelligence with London.

"Our view of Huawei is putting it in your system creates real risk. This is an extension of the Chinese Communist Party with a legal requirement to hand over information to the Chinese Community Party," Pompeo said Wednesday.

"We'll evaluate what the United Kingdom did.... But our view is we should have Western systems with Western rules and American information should only pass across a trusted network. We'll make sure we do that."

Johnson told parliament his government will "do absolutely nothing to imperil our relationship with the US".

Pompeo, who is in London just ahead of Brexit from the European Union, will meet Johnson on Thursday but he told reporters there are many issues on the agenda including national security and trade.

Some security analysts said Britain's decision to exclude Huawei from "core" parts of the network and cap its share of the market at 35 percent may have given enough reasons to brush past the dispute.

"Essentially what they've done is limit Huawei from large parts of the network," said the Royal United Services Institute think-tank's cyber research chief James Sullivan.

The EU announced a similar plan Wednesday.