THE United States is seeking to rally European support for competitors to Huawei Technologies following disappointment in Washington over Britain’s decision to use 5G equipment made by the Chinese company.

U.S. officials at a global security conference in Germany last week urged governments and business leaders to build an ecosystem of “industry champions” that can provide alternatives to Huawei, the world’s biggest maker of mobile networking equipment.

Previous U.S. efforts to convince allies to bar the Chinese company from their networks have primarily focused on warnings that its equipment could be used by China for spying.

Huawei has repeatedly and vehemently denied the espionage allegations.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Saturday that Washington was already working with vendors to develop and test new 5G technologies.

“We are encouraging allied and U.S. tech companies to develop alternative 5G solutions and we are working alongside them to test these technologies at our military bases as we speak,” Esper said.

White House advisor Robert Blair told reporters the United States was already working with Scandinavian suppliers Nokia and Ericsson, as well as South Korea’s Samsung and other smaller firms.

“We will have some sort of a partnership with industry, we’re not sure what that’s going to look like but ... we will have a big tent,” said Blair, White House special representative for international telecommunications policy. (SD-Agencies)