Huawei sued the Federal Communications Commission on Monday to overturn the agency’s decision in December to designate the Chinese telecommunications company as a national security threat.
U.S. government officials have warned since 2018 that Huawei has ties to the Chinese government and have banned Huawei equipment for federal government use, citing security concerns. The company denies having ties to the Chinese government or being influenced by them.
With bipartisan support, the FCC voted in December 2020 to stop Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecommunications firm, from receiving U.S. telecommunications subsidies and said both companies were national security threats.
Huawei wants judges to overturn the FCC order, claiming, in a lawsuit filed Monday in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, that the agency abused its legal authority, broke federal law, and failed to give the telecommunications giant due process.
The Biden administration’s FCC on Tuesday recommitted to the designation made in December.
“Last year, the FCC issued a final designation identifying Huawei as a national security threat based on a substantial body of evidence developed by the FCC and numerous U.S. national security agencies. We will continue to defend that decision,” a spokesperson told the Verge.
Huawei is also one of a number of Chinese companies that was added to the Commerce Department’s “entities list” for its role in the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance of its Uighur Muslim population, restricting the company’s and its suppliers’ access to U.S. products and technology.
The Commerce Department explained in December that Huawei was added to the entity list in May 2019 because the company and its affiliates “engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.”
The Trump administration engaged in an all-out effort to limit Huawei’s global reach, especially in the area of fifth-generation wireless, pushing its “Five Eyes” international partners to reject Huawei technology in their communications networks.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz last week placed a hold on President Biden’s Commerce Department secretary nominee, Gina Raimondo, after she declined to promise specifically to keep Huawei on the U.S. trade blacklist.
