Gina Raimondo, nominated by US President-elect Joe Biden for Secretary of Commerce, speaks during an event to announce members of Biden’s economy and jobs team at her transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, January 8, 2021.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Three members of China’s hardline Senate are calling on President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Department of Commerce to clarify whether she would remove Chinese telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies from a commercial blacklist under any circumstances.
The letter from Republican senators Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse and Tom Cotton comes after the nominee, Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo, sparked outrage among China’s hawks when she promised to protect US telecommunications networks from Chinese companies, but refused to keep Huawei on the list.
“We ask that you respond in writing with your view on whether you envisage any scenario in which, if confirmed as Secretary, … would remove Huawei … from the Entity List” or relax the rules governing your access to 5G technology, wrote the senators in the letter, released Friday.
“The company has not changed with the presidency of the United States,” they warned.
The letter is a sign of growing Capitol pressure for President Joe Biden to take a hard line on Beijing. Biden’s team generally avoided clear political commitments about China before taking office earlier this month, but promised to maintain a firm stance while employing a more strategic and multilateral approach.
Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, put Huawei on a business blacklist in May 2019 and spearheaded a global campaign to persuade allies to exclude it from its 5G networks.
Washington accused the company of being able to spy on customers, as well as theft of intellectual property and sanctions violations. Huawei denied any wrongdoing.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that the government will work to protect American telecommunications networks from “untrusted suppliers” such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, which threaten national security. This offered some insight into his plans for China’s largest telecommunications equipment company, long in Washington’s sights.
But the comments were not enough to calm the three senators, who raised the specter of opposition to other Commerce Department nominees if they did not commit themselves to a tough enough technology policy against Beijing.
“It is equally imperative that all nominees for the Department of Commerce follow their lead in recognizing the dangers of the (Chinese Communist Party) and the need to obstruct or restrict access (Chinese) to US technology that can promote (their) ambitions that are dangerous to US interests, “they wrote. “If these nominees do not make it clear that they will fulfill these broad concerns and objectives, they could face substantial opposition from Congress,” they added.