Roving Periscope: US starts taming the Dragon, bans Chinese telecom co

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: With Chinese President Xi Jinping rejecting his US counterpart Joe Biden’s offer of an in-the-face Summit, demanding a prior settlement of outstanding issues between the two countries, Washington has tightened screws on Beijing by directing a Chinese telecommunication company to stop providing domestic, interstate and international service across the USA within 60 days.

American regulators are set to expel a unit of China Telecom Ltd., one of the country’s three major state-owned carriers, from the American market as a national security threat amid rising tension with Beijing, media reported on Wednesday.

The company in the Washington-Beijing crossfire, China Telecom (Americas) Corp. has been asked to pack up under an order approved on Tuesday by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The regulator cited the danger that Beijing might use the firm to eavesdrop or disrupt US communications and “engage in espionage and other harmful activities against the United States”.

These anti-Chinese moves were started by then US President Donald Trump in 2019. His successor Joe Biden’s Administration has extended efforts to limit Chinese access to US technology and markets for state-owned Chinese companies, because of the prevailing concerns that, being government-owned, they were security risks. China Telecom is among the companies expelled from US stock exchanges under an order by Trump barring Americans from investing in them last year.

In 2019, the FCC had said that because of security concerns, it planned to revoke licenses granted nearly two decades ago to China Telecom and another state-owned carrier, China Unicom Ltd. It also rejected a license application by the third carrier, China Mobile Ltd.

“China Telecom Americas’ ownership and control by the Chinese government raises significant national security and law enforcement risks,” the FCC announced.

The company’s conduct and communications to US government agencies “demonstrate a lack of candor, trustworthiness, and reliability,” it added.

Reacting to the fresh development, Beijing said it would take “appropriate steps” to protect its companies but was yet to announce any retaliation over their status in the US market.

The telecom companies are on a US government blacklist of entities deemed by the Pentagon to be involved in military development. Others include state-owned oil companies, suppliers of processor chips and video technology and construction, aerospace, rocketry, shipbuilding, and nuclear power equipment companies, the media reported.