WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A congressional panel has approved a measure designed to search and clear the U.S. nuclear-weapons complex of technology produced by Chinese telecommunications companies that have been accused of working closely with China’s government and military.
If passed into law, the measure adopted Thursday could be a fresh blow to Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp
in their efforts to overcome national-security concerns that have stymied them in the lucrative U.S. market.
Huawei and ZTE were singled out by name in the measure, adopted by the Republican-led House of Representatives’ Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, as part of the 2013 defense authorization bill.
The full House Armed Services Committee is to consider the legislation on May 9. It will have to be reconciled with a companion bill expected to be taken up next month by the Armed Services Committee in the Democratic-led Senate.
The Senate panel is not known to be mulling a similar provision. It was not immediately clear whether the Obama administration would support the proposed action. The Energy Department will “continue to work with Congress and other federal agencies on this important national security issue,” said a department official who asked not to be named.
The House panel’s measure would order the secretary of energy, in consultation with U.S. counter-intelligence, to report to congressional committees that oversee defense issues by August 31 on risks to the department’s information-technology supply chain. The measure calls for special attention to the department’s bomb-building enterprise and a determination whether the department or any of its big contractors has “a supply chain that includes technology produced by Huawei or ZTE Corp.”
