April 19, 2023 Updated:
April 19, 2023
The U.S. Capitol in
Washington on March 23, 2023. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)
The House passed a bill
on April 19 that would require the State Department to address the use of
problematic telecommunications equipment and services by requiring publicly
traded companies to disclose whether they use such equipment or services.
The final vote was 410-8.
Four Republicans and four Democrats voted against the measure.
The bill means that
public companies would be required to disclose annually if they use equipment
or services from Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei, both of which are banned in the United States.
“Reporting has shown us
how Huawei and ZTE operate as vehicles for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to
commit human rights violations against the Uyghur people, conduct mass
surveillance, and spread that technology to other authoritarian regimes,” said
Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) in a statement after
the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the bill in 2022. The Senate did not
take it up.
“In the face of this
threat, we need to redouble our efforts to protect our national security and
interests, help our allies take vital measures for their own security, and
stand firmly in defense of fundamental rights,” she added.
The bill would require
the secretary of state to submit a report “on the prevalence of untrusted
telecommunications equipment or services in the networks of United States
allies and partners” to specific congressional committees within 180 days after
the enactment of the bill and to do so annually for the next two years.
Those committees are
House Foreign Affairs, Energy and Commerce Committees, Senate Foreign
Relations, and the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees.
The measure would also
require the secretary of state to also submit a report to the House Foreign
Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “containing an
assessment of the use of covered telecommunications equipment or services in
United States embassies and by United States embassy staff and personnel.”
The bill, according to
the Congressional Budget Office, would allow the State Department and the U.S.
Trade and Development Agency “to provide diplomatic and technical support to
countries that are working to secure their telecommunications infrastructure.”
Whether the bill is taken
up by the Senate this time around is to be determined. It is publicly unknown
whether President Joe Biden would sign or veto the bill were it to be sent to
his desk.
The bill noted that “the
Comptroller General of the United States has reported that 23 percent of all
telecommunications device manufacturers of the Department of State have at
least one supplier reported to be headquartered in the People’s Republic of
China or the Russian Federation.”
In addition, the
comptroller general “has reported that four percent of all telecommunications
contractors of the Department of State have at least one supplier reported to
be headquartered in the People’s Republic of China.”
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