The Wall Street Journal reported that pressure from the US hasn't been enough to persuade India to pass on Huawei's 5G technology just yet.
The US has been consistently lobbying allied countries to freeze out Huawei from their upcoming 5G networks, as it maintains that the company could act as a proxy for the Chinese government to carry out espionage.
Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei this week told the BBC that Huawei doesn't provide the Chinese Communist Party with any "backdoors" through which to spy.
The Journal reports that India could be the US's toughest challenge. With a rapidly expanding online population, India is an enormous market and it would be a major win for Huawei, though the firm's presence there is still relatively small.
A memo sent earlier this month from India's Home Ministry to the Prime Ministers Office and the head of the National Security Council parts of which were read out to the Journal said the US had been in touch. "The US side is concerned," it said.
An unnamed senior Indian official with knowledge of the matter told the Journal that India is keen to take advantage of 5G, and might ignore America's warnings about Huawei to do so.
"Huawei is today at the frontier on 5G and so can't be ignored... All technologies have security concerns and vulnerabilities, so singling out Huawei won't be correct." They also said that India would select its 5G vendors, "on our terms, not under pressure [from the US]."
The same source said US officials have been lobbying for India to engage with American rivals to Huawei, such as Qualcomm.
SEE ALSO: Huawei might spend more than $2 billion combating spying worries in the UK
