The leaders of a U.S. House of Representatives panel have called on top Chinese telecom companies to detail any links to the Chinese military and government, citing national security concerns posed by the companies’ U.S. presence. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on China and the panel’s chair, Republican John Moolenaar (R-MI), asked China Telecom and China Unicom to answer a series of questions by March 31, according to letters reviewed by Reuters.
The lawmakers are concerned the firms could exploit access to American data through their U.S. cloud and internet service businesses ultimately forwarding such data to Beijing, citing a 2024 Reuters report on a Commerce Department investigation into the matter.
“China Telecom’s ongoing U.S. operations – particularly in internet backbone exchanges and cloud computing environments – could … allow unauthorized data access, espionage, or sabotage by the Chinese Communist Party,” the lawmakers wrote. The firm’s “documented connections to (Chinese) intelligence raise urgent national security questions in light of the Chinese government’s increasingly aggressive attacks on U.S. telecommunications networks,” they added.
The letters show growing bipartisan concern about the Chinese telecoms’ U.S. footprint following a series of high-profile Chinese-led attacks on American telecommunications infrastructure.
One attack, Salt Typhoon, compromised sensitive data of millions of Americans, according to Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Another attack, Volt Typhoon, tied to China’s Ministry of State Security, is waging what the FBI calls China’s “most significant cyber-espionage campaign in history,” the letters add. Beijing has denied responsibility.
China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom have been under scrutiny by the U.S. government for some time. The FCC denied China Mobile’s application to provide U.S. telecommunications service in 2019 and revoked China Telecom and China Unicom’s authorizations in 2021 and 2022, Inside Towers reported.
In April 2024, the FCC said it was barring the companies from providing broadband service once new net neutrality rules took effect. With net neutrality rules now blocked by a court, lawmakers are concerned that the Chinese telecom operators could provide cloud services and wholesale U.S. internet traffic routing, giving them access to Americans’ data.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
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