The United States is escalating its campaign against Chinese tech with officials now calling on American companies to purge their systems and networks of "untrusted" technologies. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned on Tuesday that all companies should "clean" their networks and remove any technologies that could potentially threaten the country's national security.
Pompeo outlined the Trump administration's "Clean Network" initiative during his speech, naming five key areas that are deemed critically important in ensuring the country's national security. The official stated that the administration is aiming to prohibit Chinese companies from these key areas, namely mobile apps, cloud services, carrier networks, undersea networks, and computer applications.
The move comes as the Trump administration has singled out a number of Chinese companies, which it has deemed to be threats to the country's national safety. Chinese companies and applications such as Huawei Technologies and ByteDance's TikTok app are now being targeted by officials with threats of being outright banned from operating in the nation. The move by the Trump administration comes amid an escalation in the tech war between the two nations.
The U.S. claims that such as move is merely a response to China's long-standing "Great Firewall," which has for years prevented foreign companies and content from being available to the country's internet users. Pompeo told reports that Chinese apps such as TikTok and WeChat are threatening the personal data security of all American users. He accused the apps of being mere tools of the Chinese government for both espionage and content censorship.
Apart from restricting apps and mobile devices, Pompeo noted that the new proposal will also seek to bar the use of Chinese cloud services in the country. He mentioned that the prohibition will serve to protect all Americans' sensitive personal information and businesses' intellectual properties. Pompeo specifically singled out Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent during his speech.
In response to Pompeo's statement, Chinese officials said on Thursday that the country was strongly opposed to the U.S. government's use of national security as an excuse to oppress Chinese tech companies. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin noted that the United States' actions and decisions have no factual basis. He added that the move to ban Chinese tech is likely the country's way of unfairly gaining an advantage to maintain its monopoly in the various tech industries.
