On December 16, The New York Times reported that the Biden administration plans to ban China Telecom’s remaining small operations in the United States. Subsequently, a “source” revealed to Reuters that the U.S. Department of Commerce is preparing to further restrict China Telecom Americas due to concerns that it may “obtain U.S. data through cloud computing and Internet businesses and hand it over to the Chinese government,” which confirms the above statement of the New York Times.
According to Reuters, the US government has currently banned Chinese telecom operators such as China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom from providing telephone and retail Internet services in the United States, but has retained a small number of businesses such as cloud services and Internet traffic wholesale. The New York Times said that if the Trump administration agrees to the above measures, the order issued by the US Department of Commerce will deprive China Telecom of its only remaining business in the United States.
According to reports, The New York Times believes that the action against China Telecom is the first time that the US government has announced a response to the so-called “Chinese hacking action.” But US officials admitted that they had no evidence that China Telecom’s US business was involved. The report also said that the ban on China Telecom has far greater symbolic significance than economic impact, because the United States had already begun to reduce China Telecom’s presence before the latest turn in the cyber confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.
Xiang Ligang, chairman of the Zhongguancun Information Consumption Alliance, said that the above business does not involve international roaming between Chinese and American telecom operators, so it will not affect the mobile phone call business of Chinese citizens entering the United States. However, some Chinese companies’ data business in the United States may choose the cloud services of Chinese telecom operators in the United States. If the US Department of Commerce prohibits this business, it means that these Chinese companies cannot choose Chinese telecom operators to store data, but must choose the cloud services of American telecom operators. He believes that this will split the business data of Chinese companies in China and the United States, resulting in reduced efficiency and increased costs. “If the data of Chinese companies’ US business is uploaded to the cloud of American telecom operators, it may involve data security issues.”
According to the Global Times, experts interviewed by reporters believe that behind the United States’ frequent smears on China over so-called cybersecurity issues, there is also the United States’ attempt to further decouple from China in high-tech, and it also reflects the United States’ anxiety in the face of China’s rapid technological development.
