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Earlier this year a U.S. F-22 pilot shot down a massive balloon that had made its way across the American heartland with the ability to spy on American military installations. We join leaders across government in condemning the intrusion and in our call to hold the Chinese government accountable for its brazen violation of our airspace and sovereignty. But as the Chinese government’s spy balloon consumes our national attention, we cannot lose sight of the serious threat of espionage that already exists within our borders. Due to a shortfall in federal funding for a critical national security program under the Secure and Trusted Communications Act — commonly known as “rip and replace” — U.S. telecommunications networks remain riddled with insecure equipment manufactured by companies beholden to the government of China that can do everything from capture Americans’ data to disrupt critical communications at U.S. Strategic Command.
The potential consequences of the widespread infiltration of U.S. networks by Chinese state-connected companies Huawei Technologies Ltd. and ZTE Corporation have been documented by national security agencies since 2017, and they pose a much more immediate and invasive risk to national security than spy balloons. The findings of the U.S. intelligence and national security community are clear: this equipment provides the Chinese government with an entry point for capturing our conversations and harvesting the troves of data that we transmit over the airwaves each second, whether that data is traveling over a compromised network or another wireless system operating nearby. The equipment could also be used by the Chinese government to launch or amplify cyberattacks on civil, critical or military infrastructure. Worst of all, it could even be exploited to interfere with or interrupt U.
