US lawmakers ask Joe Biden administration to bar investments in Chinese tech firm Quectel
- Leaders of US House panel on China want the tech giant to be designated as a Chinese military entity, which would put it on an investment blacklist
- Quectel supplies technology to Beidou, a navigation satellite system, which China ‘views as critical to its military operations’, the congressmen say
The US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has asked President Joe Biden’s administration to bar US investments in the Chinese tech giant Quectel by designating it as a military entity.
Quectel “should be listed as a PRC military company restricted from accessing US capital”, said a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin released on Thursday by the House panel.
Signed by Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican and the committee’s chairman, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the panel’s ranking Democrat, the letter said there was “significant evidence” suggesting the firm “may contribute to the defense industrial base”.
Quectel describes itself as a global supplier of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. IoT is physical objects like vehicles and appliances that communicate with computing systems using sensors and other wireless technologies over the internet.
The letter warned that the Quectel was “gaining market share in the US” and “with tens of millions of Quectel modules in smart devices across the country”, its status as a contributor to Chinese military was “highly relevant”.
The company called the claims “false accusations” and said there was “no basis to add Quectel to any US government restricted list”.
“Our products are designed only for civil use cases and do not pose any threat to the national security of the United States,” Norbert Muhrer, Quectel’s president, told Reuters.
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In September, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel asked the Pentagon to consider declaring that Quectel posed an unacceptable national security risk.
She said the FCC was open to cooperating in jointly addressing the threat and adding Quectel to the agency’s Covered List, which prohibits the use of federal funds to buy equipment from sanctioned companies.
Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi had earlier raised concerns about China remotely taking control of devices that were embedded with Chinese-made connectivity modules.
In linking Quectel with the Chinese military, lawmakers said the company was supplying its technology to Beidou, a navigation satellite system, which China “views as critical to its military operations”.
They added that Quectel was a major supplier to Huawei Technologies and that it had “designed modules to integrate into Huawei’s platforms”. The US has banned sale of new equipment by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, in 2022 over national security concerns.
The panel’s letter said that Chinese media had “touted Huawei’s use of Quectel modules as reducing Huawei’s reliance on Western companies and thus lessening Huawei’s vulnerabilities to US export controls and sanctions”.
In 2021, an executive order by Biden listed 59 companies as linked to the Chinese military in order to prevent American investors from supporting Beijing’s military-industrial complex.
