Earlier this month, the FCC issued show cause orders to China Telecom Americas, China Unicom Americas, Pacific Networks and ComNet, requesting they provide explanations as to why the FCC should not revoke their domestic and international section authorizations, which allow them to operate in the United States.
“If we recall, with 5G technology that Huawei, the Chinese company, has been building - US corporations are nowhere near that. So, the US is lashing out in whatever way it can to truly slow down China's growth and development,” technology and security analyst Patricia Gorky told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear on Monday.
“On Friday, the FCC announced that it might shut down operations in the US, in US territory, which includes the colonies of the United States - Puerto Rico. So, the FCC is saying that they may shut down three Chinese telecom companies, claiming that they are controlled by the Chinese government and pose a threat to national security,” Gorky told host John Kiriakou.
Net Neutrality Killer Claims Chinese Firms Are Risk
In a statement Friday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai claimed that the Chinese telecommunications companies pose a risk to “national security.”
“Foreign entities providing telecommunications services – or seeking to provide services – in the United States must not pose a risk to our national security. The Show Cause Orders reflect our deep concern – one shared by the US Departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and State and the US Trade Representative – about these companies’ vulnerability to the exploitation, influence, and control of the Chinese Communist Party, given that they are subsidiaries of Chinese state-owned entities. We simply cannot take a risk and hope for the best when it comes to the security of our networks,” Pai said.
Pai’s discussion of exploitation, influence and control is quite ironic given that he is responsible for repealing net neutrality standards in the US in 2017 under US President Donald Trump’s administration, Gorky pointed out. Net neutrality protects free speech by not allowing internet service providers to block content, slow down competitors’ content or discriminate against political opinions they disagree with.
“Ajit Pai, if we remember, was formally a lawyer with Verizon. And just a couple of years ago, he led the attack and the destruction of net neutrality, which is a simple principle that internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon can’t tamper with websites you visit, selectively slow them down or block access entirely to sites and services they don’t like or compete with their own services,” Gorky explained.
The US is threatened by Huawei’s fifth-generation technology for cellphone networks, Gorky explained, and has thus tried to push Huawei out of 5G markets across the globe by demanding that other countries ban the tech giant from deploying its equipment, claiming that Huawei helps Beijing spy on its customers.
“Washington has accused Beijing of cyberattacks aimed at allegedly stealing US economic and technological data, which doesn’t actually belong to the US but to these privately owned corporations. And China is basically saying to the US, ‘Show us the evidence,’ but there is none,” Gorky said. “Trump is promoting this tech war against China.”
