Addressing reporters in Ljubljana Robert Strayer, the deputy assistant secretary for cyber and international communications and information policy, noted the importance of adopting appropriate security measures in order to protect sensitive data.

He said that the company that provides the fifth generation wireless technology must be resident in an environment where there is rule of law, due process and independent judiciary.

"In our view China doesn't have independent judiciary, rule of law and in fact it has a law called the national intelligence law of 2017 that requires all of entities in China to comply with the mandate of intelligence and security services," the official said.

Asked by a reporter which provider of 5G Slovenia should choose, Strayer said that the US wanted Slovenia to make its own decision about which kind of providers it wants to have.

However, he said it was important that it "adopt a set of security standards that include looking at the laws that are in place where the companies are headquartered.

"So in the case of China the concern would be about their national intelligence law that requires they [providers] have to comply with the mandates of the security and intelligence services," he said.

Asked what would happen if Slovenia opted for the Chinese technological giant Huawei, the US official noted the close security cooperation through NATO and the robust tempo of operations, NATO exercises as well as the need to potentially mobilise troops.

"We don't want that ability to interoperate to be degraded by the fact that we cannot share certain information over networks that are compromised when they have untrusted vendors. So the addition of untrusted vendors to G5 network could interfere with our ability to interoperate in the ways we do today," he said

The security aspect of 5G was the main topic of Strayer's visit to Slovenia. He said that he had very good meetings with some government officials and he believes they "understand the concerns we are raising".

The administration of US President Donald Trump has been accusing Huawei of allowing the Chinese government covert access to data on users of 5G networks worldwide, the accusation denied by Huawei.