Nine CCP-linked firms are suspected of quietly operating in the United States despite being blacklisted over risks to U.S. national security.
The Federal Communications Commission has launched a sweeping new investigation into firms aligned with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that may still be operating in the United States after being blacklisted due to national security concerns.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced the initiative on March 21, calling it the first major action led by the agency’s newly formed Council on National Security, which he formally unveiled last week. The council’s mission includes preventing cyber attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure and rooting out foreign espionage threats.
The probe focuses on whether firms like Huawei, ZTE, China Telecom, and others—previously placed on the FCC’s “Covered List“ due to their equipment and services posing unacceptable risks—continue to operate in the United States through regulatory loopholes or informal channels.
“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,” Carr said in a statement. “To safeguard our networks, the FCC has placed those CCP-aligned entities on our Covered List, and we have revoked many of the FCC authorizations that they had been operating under.”
Carr said that despite those actions, the agency has reason to believe some firms may still be doing business on an unregulated or private basis. As part of its investigation, the FCC has issued letters of inquiry and at least one subpoena.
“We are not going to just look the other way,” Carr said. “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 nine entities targeted in the investigation are Huawei Technologies Company, ZTE Corporation, 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.
By Tom Ozimek
