US Officials Target Chinese State-Owned Telecom Provider

Trump administration officials sought to revoke federal licenses used by China Telecom to do business in the US as part of a broader campaign to curb global Chinese technology interests on national security grounds. A collection of federal agencies led by the Department of Justice and including the departments of Defense and Homeland Security asked the Federal Communications Commission to permanently revoke licenses the Chinese internet service provider’s US subsidiary has used since 2007 to act as a “common carrier” connecting domestic and overseas networks. The FCC has final authority over the decision but often defers to national security officials at other agencies. The proposal, if adopted, would effectively bar China Telecom from serving US clients and could hinder its ability to send data across American networks.

The agencies’ decision cited an “evolving national security environment since 2007 and increased knowledge of the [People's Republic of China]’s role in malicious cyber activity targeting the United States.” State-owned China Telecom is one of China’s three major phone and internet providers and has operations around the world. The US agencies also claimed China Telecom made inaccurate statements to officials about where it stores US records, that its lax network security threatened American interests, and that the company disrupted and misrouted internet traffic. The filing details 10 such reported incidents from 2010-2019 that interrupted Facebook’s US traffic, Google’s global traffic and the US Energy Department’s traffic.