Huawei, ZTE and three other Chinese companies on the FCC blacklist
Critical infrastructures and national security: the economic and technological war between the US and China continues. Five Chinese companies pose a threat to US national security. The article by Francesco D'Arrigo, director of the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday sanctioned five Chinese companies as a threat to national security under the 2019 law aimed at protecting US communications networks. The law requires the FCC to identify companies that manufacture telecommunications technologies, equipment and services "that pose an unacceptable risk to US national security."
The provision issued on March 12 concerns: Huawei Technologies Co, ZTE Corp, Hytera Communications Corp, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co.
There are several companies that have ended up in the blacklist of the FCC, which in 2019 included Huawei and Hikvision, following further investigations last year established that Huawei and ZTE technologies and services represent a threat to the national security of communication networks. : A statement preventing US companies from tapping into a $ 8.3 billion government fund to purchase supplies from these companies.
Meanwhile, last August 2020, the US government issued additional regulations banning US agencies from purchasing goods or services from these five Chinese companies.
The petition presented last February by Huawei to the United States Fifth Court of Appeals did not provide sufficient answers to the remarks made by the FCC inspectors.
FCC President Jessica Rosenworcel said: “This list provides meaningful guidance that will ensure that while next-generation networks are rolled out across the country, past mistakes are not repeated or technologies are used. and / or services that will pose a threat to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of Americans ”.
This resolution comes a short distance from the one that the FCC itself issued in December 2020, requiring all contractors of the national network that have built infrastructures using ZTE or Huawei equipment to "uninstall and replace" (rip and replace) such equipment. To this end, it created a program to reimburse the costs of these uninstallations, which the US government approved last December and approved a budget of $ 1.9 billion to finance the program.
A strong and clear message to China and its European allies, especially to those who have not yet fully assessed what potential repercussions on security the choice of entrusting essential and strategic services to authoritarian states would have.
Washington assumes that it can align them with a different diplomatic approach from its predecessor, we'll see.
Francesco D'Arrigo
Director of the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/huawei-zte-e-altre-tre-societa-cinesi-nella-blacklist-della-fcc/ on Mon, 15 Mar 2021 16:25:36 +0000.