WASHINGTON — Members of Congress are urging more scrutiny of Chinese companies in the U.S. after the Justice Department this week announced that two Chinese agents sought to obstruct prosecution of a telecommunications company reported to be Huawei Technologies.
The criminal charges unsealed Monday against the two Chinese intelligence officers are the latest twist in the case against the company, which the department indicted in 2020 for federal racketeering and conspiring to steal U.S. companies’ trade secrets. The Justice Department described the company as “a global telecommunications company that is a charged defendant in an ongoing prosecution.” The New York Times reported that the company was Huawei.
“Huawei isn’t a private company — Huawei is a key piece of the Chinese Communist Party’s techno-authoritarianism,” Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., a member of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, said in a statement. “We need far more American intelligence and law enforcement focus on the CCP’s strategy to use front organizations and fake ‘private sector’ companies to try to bribe, compromise and silence Americans.”
