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the Jordanian telecom company Zain signed a contract with Nokia to deploy 5G networks in the kingdom. Umniah, another local cellular phone service provider picked Ericsson. Jordan’s third mobile internet operator, Orange, has yet to reveal its 5G choice for several markets, but like its competitors, the firm also seems inclined to select a Swedish or Finnish multinational for its coverage.
The snubbing of Chinese telecommunications behemoth Huawei will disappoint Beijing. Not only is Jordan a participant in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and increasingly a destination of Chinese foreign direct investment, but Huawei also provided the backbone for Jordan’s 2G, 3G and 4G networks.
Beijing is sure to blame U.S. pressure for the exclusion of Huawei from the kingdom’s market. No doubt Amman understood that continued close strategic cooperation with Washington and the goodwill of Congress — which currently provides the monarchy with $1.6 billion per year in financial assistance — would be difficult to sustain if Jordan utilized Huawei for its 5G. Perhaps Amman, like Washington, also came to appreciate that corporations in China are beholden to the government, and therefore data traversing networks supported by Huawei are inherently compromised.
Notwithstanding the U.S. position, the Kingdom had other reasons to be wary of this particularly sensitive Chinese investment. Like so many other states, Jordan finds itself caught in a Chinese debt trap.
Since its establishment in 1946, the Kingdom has been endemically insolvent. King Abdullah II’s strategy to extricate Jordan from this morass relies on attracting billions in foreign direct investment.
