Chinese cyber espionage and cyber-attack capabilities will continue to support China’s national security and economic priorities,” says Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence “Americans should not buy Huawei or ZTE products.” In March 2017 the Chinese Telecom company, ZTE, plead guilty to shipping US technology to Iran and North Korea, and reached a settlement to punish the responsible parties for covering up the illegal sales and pay a $1.2 billion penalty. ZTE did not follow through with the settlement deal by not punishing those involved with the cover-up; in fact those employees received bonuses. While investigating ZTE, internal documents named a competitor—code name “F7” which stated that F7 used “‘cutoff companies’ to do business in sanctioned countries and aimed to recruit lawyers with a thorough knowledge of U.S. export controls and compliance. (source:Law360 04/12/17) Investigators have come to believe the Chinese telecommunications company known as F7 is really Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. U.S. government officials have a renewed interest in investigating further into the F7 connection. Meanwhile, concerns have heightened at the Pentagon about consumer electronics being used to track service members. As a result, personnel on U.S. military bases can no longer buy phones and other gear manufactured by the Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE, as the Pentagon said the devices pose an “unacceptable” security risk. (Source:Channel NewsAsia) Pentagon spokesman Major Dave Eastburn said on May 4, 2018, “Huawei and ZTE devices may pose an unacceptable risk to (military) personnel, information and mission.” In March, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai informed Congress he also shared the concerns of U.S. lawmakers about surveillance threats from Huawei. “Hidden ‘back doors’ to our networks in routers, switches—and virtually any other type of telecommunications equipment—can provide an avenue for hostile governments to inject viruses, launch denial-of-service attacks, steal data, and more.” Is an Executive Order imminent?
