Simington Says U.S. Can Do More to Counter Chinese Threat

Nathan Simington said Thursday during a Hudson Institute webinar. He is seeking recognition that Chinese technology that’s not considered telecom equipment still “poses a substantial risk when it’s included as a component of a larger cyber and telecom ecosystem.” The U.S. must go deeper than communications equipment and focus also on AI, automated systems and the “cyber environments” for pipelines, manufacturing plants and vehicular controls, he said. Chinese telecom “poses a threat to the private sector as well,” Simington said. “We have to remain at the forefront of telecommunications and its integration into technologies,” he said. The FCC issues licenses for undersea cables but can’t issue or revoke a license without State Department approval, he said. The U.S. “has taken significant steps to limit the use of Chinese-built undersea cables,” but China’s HMN Technologies still supplies more than 10% of cable infrastructure worldwide, he said. China lays less undersea cable than the U.S., France and Japan, “but not an insignificant amount -- and increasing,” he said. Starting in 2022, the U.S. government “exerted influence” to prevent some new cables from connecting directly between the U.S. and China, he said: “This has led to a quiet cable-laying rivalry between Southeast Asia [and] all the way into the Middle East and Western Europe.”