By U.S. Senator Deb Fischer
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In 2022, the Justice Department charged two people for allegedly attempting to obstruct a government investigation into Huawei, a Chinese-owned company.
Both defendants, thought to be Chinese intelligence officers, orchestrated a plot to steal sensitive case material from the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. This stolen information was tied to Huawei’s indictment on charges of fraud and racketeering in 2019 and 2020.
But who exactly is Huawei, and why should we care?
A giant in the telecommunications sector, Huawei is one of the world’s largest suppliers of telecommunications equipment. The company is a leader in smartphone sales and next-generation 5G technology, and it has been reported to power the new AI model from China’s DeepSeek startup.
But their rise to the top was not a coincidence.
The company received tens of billions of dollars in financial aid from the Chinese government to fuel their success. Yet, despite this massive assistance, it continued to downplay the extent of the funding, claiming to have only received “small and non-material” grants. All the while, the company regularly sold its equipment at unprofitably low prices that could not be matched.
Over a decade ago, intelligence agencies began noticing a specific pattern of Huawei equipment on cell towers across Nebraska, as well as nearby Colorado and Montana. Eerily, the gear clustered near sensitive military assets, including Offutt Air Force Base and nuclear missile silos.
Then, just four years ago, U.S. officials released alarming warnings about Huawei’s security risks. They claimed Huawei could secretly access mobile phone networks around the world through “back doors.” It turns out Huawei had this capability for more than a decade—unbeknownst to carriers.
Huawei’s espionage capability, along with their longstanding ties to the Chinese government, raised grave concerns about its influence. Considering Huawei’s base of operations in China and its deep connections to the Chinese Communist Party, as confirmed by the U.S. intelligence community, the malign surveillance of our communications and technology supply chains is real and troubling.
In 2020, under President Trump’s administration, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated Huawei as a national security threat and banned the sale of its telecommunications equipment in the U.S. This past December, Congress also secured the remaining funding to enable smaller, rural communications companies to rip risky Chinese-made equipment out of their networks.
While these actions against Huawei and other high-risk Chinese telecommunications firms are steps in the right direction, they don’t go far enough. Across the board, we must have far greater transparency about which companies holding federal communications licenses and authorizations also have influential ties to foreign adversarial governments.
Huawei is not the only Chinese-owned company that poses a growing threat to our communications infrastructure. Our foreign adversaries have stakes in numerous companies operating freely within the United States. Yet, in many cases, the public remains unaware of how many—or which—companies are owned in whole or part by these adversaries.
That’s why this month, I introduced the Foreign Adversary Communication Transparency (FACT) Act to strengthen U.S. telecommunications against our foreign adversaries. My legislation would require the FCC to publish a list of all foreign-owned communications firms operating in the United States.
The first step in defending our national security is understanding the threat. This is what my bill addresses by requiring the FCC to publicly disclose a full accounting of these details. Under the FACT Act, companies with foreign ties will no longer be able to operate in secrecy. They will no longer be able to conceal their financial backers or obscure their true loyalties.
This threat is urgent.
Permitting authoritarian regimes like China to secure a silent foothold in our domestic communications networks puts Nebraska at risk, and it puts our nation at risk.
The recent charges against two Chinese intelligence officers serve as a warning. China is on the offensive, using every tool to undermine the security of America’s communications. An attack on our networks is a direct attack on the United States, and it is not one we should tolerate. It’s time for America to wake up, and it’s time to pass the FACT Act.
Thank you for participating in the democratic process, and I look forward to visiting with you again next week.