A new report from the U.S. House Select Committee on China titled “Stranger Pings” details the risks posed to the U.S. by Chinese telecom companies and their potential link to cyberattacks on U.S. soil.
“U.S.-based subsidiaries of Chinese telecommunications companies are beholden to the CCP, and they are a threat to all of us,” said Committee Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.).
"They make American customers promise to censor information according to the CCP's laws, and they poison the domestic cyber infrastructure we rely on. All of this leaves us vulnerable to a new wave of state-sponsored cyberattacks from our nation's biggest adversary. The CCP does not allow U.S. telecom companies into China. We must cut these subsidiaries out of our domestic infrastructure to protect the American people," he added.
The bipartisan committee looked into Chinese telecom companies China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom. The companies refused to voluntarily comply with the investigation and had to be subpoenaed.
According to the report, all three had their licenses to provide direct telecom services to Americans revoked, but they maintain extensive unregulated operations in the U.S.
Those operations include providing a variety of hardware to American telecom companies. One provider that contracted with U.S. companies included a clause in the contract prohibiting the broadcast of any material critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
The investigation confirmed that the three telecom companies are not truly independent from their parent companies in China.
The committee highlighted that, currently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can limit the companies’ ability to sell certain products, but cannot remove the equipment, presence, or network relationships the companies already have in place.
The investigation also tied the companies to notable Chinese cyberattacks on the U.S. through anomalous routing activity corresponding with the time of the attacks.
The report issued a list of recommendations for policy changes to combat the risk posed by the companies, including codifying the FCC’s ability to regulate them, establishing authority over existing infrastructure tied to foreign adversaries, funding the replacement of Chinese telecom technology in the U.S., and requiring monitoring until Chinese infrastructure can be removed.
The committee began its investigation in the wake of the Salt Typhoon CCP-sponsored cyberattack against U.S. telecom corporations discovered in late 2024.
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