The United States government created ripples in the world of telecom by revoking the license of China Unicom, the world’s sixth-largest mobile service provider by subscriber base, on national security grounds. This telecom giant is given 60 days of time to exit the US market.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an apex independent body that regulates communications operations in the US territory, found the presence of China Unicom a serious threat to US telecom operations. The commission stated that China Unicom ‘failed to address serious concerns as raised by them’. It further clarified that since China Unicom is a Chinese state-owned enterprise it is severely subject to exploitation and misuse by the Chinese government.

FCC is seriously concerned about Beijing’s power to ‘ access, store, disrupt, misroute US communications’. It feared a state-backed cyberattack via China Unicom to harm US interests.

“China Unicom Americas’ conduct and representations to the commission demonstrate a lack of candor, trustworthiness, and reliability that erodes the baseline level of trust that the Commission and other US government agencies require of telecom carriers given the critical nature of the provision of telecommunications service in the United States,” the FCC added.

“There has been mounting evidence, and with it growing concern, that Chinese state-owned carriers pose a real threat to the security of our telecommunications networks,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that a Chinese telecom enterprise has met with a similar fate. The FCC, earlier initiated similar revocation proceedings against Pacific Networks Corp., China Telecom Americas, and ComNet. All linked to China. Experts say, apart from security threats, changing geopolitical situations and growing hostilities between Beijing and Washington since the outbreak of pandemic might also have played a key role in making this big move.