Republican senators pressure Biden to sanction Huawei Cloud, other Chinese firms
- The senators said Huawei Cloud launched its Sky Computing Constellation in co-sponsorship with Spacety China, which was recently sanctioned
- The letter asked Biden to ‘use all available tools to engage in decisive action against these firms, through sanctions, export restrictions, and investment bans’
A group of nine Republican senators on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to impose sanctions on Huawei Cloud and other Chinese cloud services providers, citing national security concerns, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The previously unreported letter led by Senator Bill Hagerty to the Commerce, State and Treasury departments said Chinese cloud computing companies “are increasingly engaging with foreign entities – in some cases sanctioned foreign entities – that are directly challenging the national security and economic security interests of the United States and our allies and partners”.
Huawei Technologies Co and the agencies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The senators said Huawei Cloud launched its “Sky Computing Constellation” in co-sponsorship with Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute, also known as “Spacety China”, in 2021. They noted Spacety was “recently sanctioned by the Treasury Department for providing significant satellite imagery assistance to entities in the Russian Federation”.
In May 2019, the Commerce Department added Huawei to a trade blacklist over US security concerns. The company denies that it poses a security risk.