BEIJING: China on Tuesday blasted as “economic bullying” a US proposal to block telecom carriers buying from Chinese tech companies Huawei and ZTE.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said on Monday that the proposed rules — which also require carriers to remove any existing Huawei and ZTE equipment — were part of an initiative to “safeguard the nation’s communications networks”.

The two Chinese firms have been accused of posing a national security threat because of their close ties to the Beijing government, claims both have denied.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang slammed the US proposal as an attempt to “oppress certain Chinese businesses with groundless accusations”.

Geng said at a regular news briefing Tuesday that the move would ultimately hurt US businesses.

“The US economic bullying goes against the market principles which the US has always trumpeted,” he said.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai said the new plan would bar communications companies from using any support they receive from the government’s Universal Service Fund to purchase equipment or services from companies “posing a national security threat”, including Huawei and ZTE.

The proposal — to be voted on November 19 — marks the latest effort by Washington to penalise Huawei, a major telecom infrastructure provider and smartphone maker that is already on a blacklist preventing it from access to certain US tech products and services.

“When it comes to 5G and America’s security, we can’t afford to take a risk and hope for the best,” Pai said in a statement. “We need to make sure our networks won’t harm our national security, threaten our economic security, or undermine our values.”

Pai said that as the US upgrades to 5G wireless networks, “we cannot ignore the risk that the Chinese government will seek to exploit network vulnerabilities in order to engage in espionage, insert malware and viruses, and otherwise compromise our critical communications networks”.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2019