• Nokia’s mobile networks chief, Tommi Uitto, says China is set to ban western vendors from its telecom equipment sector due to national security concerns
• Uitto wants the European Commission to get tougher with countries that haven’t yet banned Huawei and ZTE so Nokia can replace them

Tommi Uitto, president of Nokia’s mobile networks division, has told Finnish newspaper Talouselämä that Chinese authorities are threatening to ban “western suppliers” – Nokia and Ericsson – from China’s mobile network infrastructure sector because of “national security” concerns. 

Uitto told Talouselämä: “We have been told verbally by high-ranking officials, when we have asked whether it is true that western manufacturers are being excluded from your market in the name of national security, the answer was yes. That is a pretty drastic statement.” 

While all of this is currently hearsay – no official announcements or documentation related to any such trade restrictions exist – any such move would mirror the treatment of Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE in multiple markets, especially the US but also in some parts of Europe too. 

Any such ban would of course be bad news for Nokia and Ericsson, but the European vendors don’t do much business in China these days anyway: Uitto noted that, combined, the two companies only boast a 3% share of China’s mobile networks equipment market. 

But the Nokia man has his eyes on the Chinese vendors’ contracts in Europe where, despite European Commission 5G cybersecurity toolbox recommendations regarding the use of technology from “high-risk suppliers”, Huawei and ZTE continue to do business in multiple markets with major telcos. 

Indeed, Huawei’s ongoing engagement with Telefónica in Spain has been in the headlines recently and ultimately led to the Spanish telco losing a government contract. If Nokia and Ericsson are barred from selling their wares in China, then surely reciprocal measures are in order from European lawmakers, argues Uitto. 

“We are being shut out of China in the name of national security,” the Nokia executive reportedly told a press conference on Friday. “That means the EU has to respond in kind (symmetrically). It creates an opportunity for us to take market share from high-risk suppliers in like-minded countries... Many countries have not banned these suppliers,” Uitto continued, according to the Talouselämä report. 

“We are not a political actor, and we do not want to take a position on politics, but the commission has a 5G toolkit, in which member states are recommended not to use high-risk equipment suppliers in some part of the network, including 5G. There are European countries that have implemented this – banned high-risk suppliers. And then there are countries that have not,” Uitto said.

It’s worth noting that, in Finnish, the phrase ‘stirring the pot’ translates as ‘kattilan sekoittaminen’.

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV