CHA China Telecom Corp Ltd

By Drew FitzGerald 

Trump administration officials on Thursday sought to revoke federal licenses used by China Telecom Corp. to do business in the U.S., ratcheting up pressure on a state-owned enterprise close to Beijing.

A collection of federal agencies led by the U.S. Department of Justice asked the Federal Communications Commission to permanently revoke licenses the Chinese internet service provider's U.S. subsidiary has used since 2007 to act as a "common carrier" connecting domestic and overseas networks. The proposal, if adopted by the FCC, would effectively bar China Telecom from serving U.S. clients and could hinder its ability to send data across American networks.

The agencies' decision cited an "evolving national security environment since 2007 and increased knowledge of the PRC's role in malicious cyber activity targeting the United States," referring to the People's Republic of China. State-owned China Telecom is one of China's three major phone and internet providers and has operations around the world.

The U.S. agencies also claim China Telecom failed to comply with existing U.S. regulations needed to maintain its FCC licenses and said the company's lax network security threatened American interests.

A China Telecom executive in the U.S. didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump administration officials in recent months have mounted an increasingly public campaign to diminish China's influence over the global technology and telecommunications sectors. The push has at times forced U.S. companies to rethink their investments in network infrastructure to skirt investments in China now considered off-limits to authorities in Washington.

The FCC last year denied a separate application by the American arm of China Mobile Ltd., another member of China's big three, to secure its common carrier licenses. Thursday's proposal would go further than that by clawing back licenses China Telecom already uses to shuttle data across the U.S.

Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 09, 2020 16:19 ET (20:19 GMT)

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