Chinese telecommunications companies could help the country’s spy services blackmail leaders of crucial European allies, a bipartisan group of senators on the Foreign Relations Committee is warning.

“It can influence the weakest link in a chain that goes to the very top,” Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., told the Washington Examiner. “If it’s not the leaders themselves, it’s a political-security apparatus, an economic apparatus somewhere that could lead to dire consequences.”