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Eswatini decides not to block Chinese telecoms firms Huawei and ZTE
- Eswatini has backed out of its plan to join the US’ anti-China ‘Clean Network’ campaign
- The country’s withdraws from the joint statement signed with the US ‘due to legitimacy issues surrounding the approval process of the document’
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Eswatini has backed out of its plan to join the US’ anti-China “Clean Network” campaign, less than two weeks after the two countries agreed to “exclude high-risk digital equipment suppliers”.
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Eswatini’s acting minister of information, communications and technology (ICT), Manqoba Khumalo, and then-US under secretary of state Keith Krach on January 15 agreed “on the importance of securing telecommunications infrastructure and ensuring safe technology supply chains based on internationally accepted digital trust standards”.
But eSwatini, an absolute monarchy of about 1.2 million citizens, has made a U-turn on plans to block Chinese telecoms equipment vendors such as Huawei and ZTE from its 5G networks.
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The southern African nation – which dropped its colonial-era name of Swaziland about three years ago – would have been the first African nation to join the “Clean Network”. It is the only African country that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province.
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