The Federal Communications Commission’s new national security team is investigating Chinese tech companies suspected of skirting U.S. restrictions.
The probe revealed on Friday represents the first initiative of the new team announced earlier this month by the FCC, which regulates communications in the U.S.
“The FCC has taken concrete actions to address the threats posed by Huawei, ZTE, China Telecom and many other entities that pose an unacceptable risk to America’s national security, including by doing Communist China’s bidding,” said FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in a statement. “To safeguard our networks, the FCC has placed those [Chinese Communist Party]-aligned entities on our Covered List, and we have revoked many of the FCC authorizations that they had been operating under.”
To kick-start its investigation, the FCC said it sent letters and “at least one subpoena” to entities on its covered list, which counts equipment and services that the U.S. government decides pose an unacceptable risk to safety and national security.
Mr. Carr said the FCC has reason to believe entities on the covered list are trying to bypass the government’s restrictions.
“We are not going to just look the other way,” Mr. Carr said in a statement. “The FCC, working through our new Council on National Security and in coordination with partners across the Federal government, will identify the scope of their ongoing activities and move quickly to close any loopholes that have permitted untrustworthy, foreign adversary state-backed actors to skirt our rules.”
The new council started earlier this month with a mission of countering foreign adversaries, particularly China.
The FCC said the national security team is charged with reducing American dependence on foreign supply chains and trade, mitigating vulnerabilities to foreign cyberattacks and espionage, and ensuring America triumphs over China in the development of critical technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
The first companies in Mr. Carr’s crosshairs are Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company, Dahua Technology Company, China Mobile International USA Inc., China Telecom (Americas) Corp., Pacifica Networks Corp./ComNet (USA) LLC, and China Unicom (Americas) Operations Ltd.
“If there’s any additional actions that we need to take against them, we’re going to do it,” Mr. Carr said in a video on X featuring him walking through the FCC’s office on Friday. “We’re going to get to the bottom of their operations and make sure that we continue to look out for your national security.”
