The State Department expanded its “Clean Network” program efforts by calling for a “Clean Fortress” to protect information and communications in the United States from foreign countries such as China as the Trump administration contemplates a ban on Chinese-owned TikTok.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the announcement on Wednesday, building on the Trump administration’s “comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens’ privacy and our companies’ most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party” by adding five new lines of effort, dubbed Clean Carrier, Clean Store, Clean Apps, Clean Cloud, and Clean Cable.
“Building a Clean Fortress around our citizens’ data will ensure all of our nations’ security,” Pompeo said.
The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report in June detailing how China is focusing on U.S. communications the same way it has targeted education, research, and personal data. The investigation found the Chinese government “exerts control over China’s domestic telecommunications industry and state-owned carriers” while it “engages in cyber and economic espionage efforts against the United States” and “may use telecommunications carriers operating in the United States to further these efforts.”
Pompeo announced the Clean Path initiative in April, aimed at implementing the 5G Clean Path guidelines outlined in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, part of the U.S. effort to protect its fifth-generation wireless systems and other telecommunications from being compromised by Chinese Big Tech firms such as Huawei or by other foreign actors. “The objective is that untrusted IT vendors will have no access to U.S. State Department systems” and that “we will keep doing all we can to keep our critical data and our networks safe from the Chinese Communist Party,” Pompeo said.
This week’s announcement builds on that, as Pompeo said that Clean Carrier efforts will ensure that “untrusted” Chinese carriers “are not connected” to U.S. telecom networks due to concerns about national security; Clean Store requirements will aim to “remove untrusted applications from U.S. mobile app stores” because Chinese apps “threaten our privacy, proliferate viruses, and spread propaganda and disinformation”; Cleans Apps guidelines will prevent “untrusted” Chinese smartphone manufacturers from pre-installing or making available for download “trusted apps” on their apps store so as to keep U.S. companies from promoting apps on phones produced by companies such as Huawei, which have been linked to human rights abuses; Clean Cloud efforts will protect personal data and intellectual property from being stored on cloud systems that are “accessible to our foreign adversaries” through Chinese tech firms such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent; and Clean Cable rules will “ensure the undersea cables connecting our country to the global internet are not subverted for intelligence gathering” by China.
Pompeo also told reporters that he is joining Attorney General William Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf in “urging” the Federal Communications Commission to “revoke and terminate” the authorizations of China Telecom and three other companies providing services to and from the U.S.
The announcement follows President Trump’s comments on Monday that TikTok would “close down” in the U.S. by Sept. 15 unless Microsoft or another U.S. company works out a deal approved by his administration to buy the video-sharing social media platform. TikTok is owned by Chinese internet technology company ByteDance, which is based in Beijing.
ByteDance and TikTok have repeatedly claimed that they have not and would never turn over TikTok user data to the Chinese government, but national security experts have raised concerns about China’s own 2017 national intelligence law, which requires all Chinese companies to assist Chinese intelligence services when asked — and to keep it secret.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, said on Sunday that “the entire committee agrees that TikTok cannot stay in the current format because it risks sending back information on a hundred million Americans.”
The House voted by a large margin to block federal employees from using TikTok in July, and the Senate joined them on Wednesday. The ban is expected to become law soon. Joe Biden’s campaign told staff to delete TikTok from their phones. The Pentagon banned service members from using TikTok in late 2019, and the Transportation Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security, and State Department also banned TikTok on government devices.
Trump’s April executive order established the “Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector” after years of there being an informal Team Telecom. The order said the “security, integrity, and availability” of U.S. telecom networks was “vital” to U.S. national security.
Barr was named the formal head of Team Telecom, tasked with working with the FCC to ensure foreign foes do not gain undue access to or control over U.S. communications networks.
The Justice Department backed the FCC’s successful plan late last year to block Chinese telecommunications companies such as Huawei and ZTE from receiving federal money to help build U.S. broadband infrastructure and supported the FCC’s proposal to replace any broadband equipment already in place that uses the Chinese company’s equipment.
The U.S. also charged Huawei in a global racketeering scheme earlier this year, and U.S. intelligence agencies believe Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese companies are working hand in hand with the Chinese Communist Party.
Federal agencies in the U.S. were banned in August 2019 from purchasing telecommunications products, surveillance equipment, or any other products or services from Huawei, ZTE Corporation, and three other Chinese companies. In a second and wider-ranging regulation that will be implemented this month, these agencies will also have to avoid doing business with any companies that buy products or services from the five Chinese companies.
