An anti-Communist group has called upon the US government to immediately recommend the deregistration of Chinese telecom organisations and to exclude other Chinese companies from trading with the US, according to a Reuters report.
According to their website, the group, which is called “The Committee on the Present Danger: China” is an independent organisation set up to “educate and inform American citizens and policymakers about the existential threats presented from the People's Republic of China under the misrule of the Chinese Communist Party.”
In a letter, dated 11 June, the Committee urged Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to take this action after the recent Senate report that showed security flaws in Chinese state-owned telecoms companies operating in the United States.
In a press release, the group stated that the Senate’s report “concluded that these corporations used their access to American carriers to conduct essentially unchecked espionage against the United States under successive administrations of both parties.”
The letter notes that the Chinese companies including China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and ComNet flagged by the report have all secured funding during this period from American investors and have taken advantage of preferential arrangements to help underwrite their allegedly “malevolent activities”.
On 29 May, President Trump tasked his Presidential Working Group on Financial Markets which includes Mnuchin with studying U.S.-listed Chinese companies in an effort to protect American investors.
The President said, “investment firms should not be subjecting their clients to the hidden and undue risks associated with financing Chinese companies that do not play by the same rules. Americans are entitled to fairness and transparency.”
The document urges Mnuchin’s working group to only allow Chinese companies to be listed or to trade in US markets if “they conform to all relevant U.S. laws, accounting standards and other financial sector regulations.”
The letter comes at a time of growing criticism of Chinese telecommunication companies operating in the States. In April, the U.S. Justice Department and other federal agencies called on the Federal Communications Commission to cancel China Telecom (Americas) Corp’s contract with the US.
