US wants to prevent China Mobile from offering services in the country

The US Department of Commerce wants to prevent China Mobile from being licensed to provide telecommunications services in the United States. The ministry wants the FCC to reject China Mobile’s application.

The website of the NTIA, part of the US Department of Commerce, states that a Secretary of State of the Department is instructing the Federal Communications Commission to deny the application. He gives the reasons for increased risks to law enforcement and risks to national security; these would not have been resolved or removed.

China Mobile is the largest telecom provider in the world, with 899 million customers. The company has not yet responded to a request from Reuters for comment. A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did respond. He urges the US to “leave cold war thinking and the zero-sum games.”

Whether the FCC actually rejects China Mobile’s application is not yet clear. The call to ban this Chinese party from the US market fits in with a recent, tougher US line, denying several Chinese companies access to the US market or US technology, as Huawei experienced earlier this year.

This has to do with the growing fear in the US that undetectable espionage for the Chinese government is taking place through Chinese companies and their technology. To prevent this, various intelligence agencies in the US have advised against American consumers to buy Huawei or ZTE smartphones, for example.

The NTIA is an agency that advises the United States President on telecommunications and information policy issues. Among other things, the agency oversees the expansion of broadband internet in the US and the promotion of secure public communications.