A plan to build a network of submarine fiber optic cables, which would include the first ever direct connection to Hong Kong, presents too great a threat to national security, a collection of executive branch agencies known as Team Telecom said this week.
The decision follows Beijing’s recent moves toward undoing Hong Kong’s governing autonomy, which Team Telecom said suggests intelligence and security services from the mainland would operate openly there.
Team Telecom, the subject of a recent executive order, is chaired by the Justice Department and includes input from the departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Treasury, State and others. The group has come under pressure from members of Congress to more actively review applications foreign telecommunications providers make to the Federal Communications Commission for national security threats.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department issued a press release announcing Team Telecom’s recommendation that the FCC deny requests to build the Pacific Light Cable Network due to the amount of U.S. data that would flow across the cables and concerns the main investor in the project would be under control of the Chinese government.
The “application would have allowed for the highest capacity subsea cable connection between the United States and Asia and been the first direct connection between the United States and Hong Kong,” the press release reads. “This raised national security concerns, because a significant investor in the PLCN is Pacific Light Data Co. Ltd., a Hong Kong company and subsidiary of Dr. Peng Telecom & Media Group Co. Ltd., the fourth largest provider of telecommunications services in the PRC.”
The recommendation has implications for the ability of a ..
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