On Tuesday, U.S. lawmakers have announced a bipartisan bill to sanction Chinese tech company Huawei Technologies Ltd and Chinese 5G companies, restricting them from accessing U.S. banks.
Source: IT news Australia
Introduced by Republican senator Tom Cotton, the bill is backed by lawmakers such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, seeks to “severely sanction” Huawei, and other “untrustworthy” Chinese 5G producers who they say engage in economic espionage against the U.S.
The bill will add these entities to the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List, effectively freezing out of the U.S. financial system.
China’s Foreign Ministry said “China firmly opposes the U.S.’s generalisation of the concept of national security, (and its) abuse of state power to suppress Chinese enterprises”.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told at a regular press briefing that China would “firmly safeguard” the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies after U.S. lawmakers introduced the bipartisan bill.
U.S. lawmakers have tried to restrain Huawei’s access to U.S. banks in the past, proposing a similar bill in 2020 when President Donald Trump was in office.
Cotton said in a statement on Tuesday, “We’ve made great strides in recent years at home and abroad in combating Huawei’s malign attempts to dominate 5G and steal Americans’ data.”