For years, Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE have supplied communications equipment to various countries around the world, but in the past few years, the attitude towards those companies have started to shift, most notably in the US where there has been a growing distrust towards these companies.
It looks like ZTE could start running into issues because the US FCC has stuck to its guns and has continued to label the company as a national security threat. The agency alleges that the equipment supplied by ZTE could be used for spying purposes, and that on the 10th of December, the agency will reconvene and decide what to do, and whether or not equipment made by ZTE should be banned from the US.
While ZTE has run into similar issues in the past, its Chinese rival Huawei was actually the first to feel the brunt of this effect. The US government has since placed Huawei on its Entity List which bars it from doing business with US companies. This has affected Huawei greatly in terms of the consumer products it makes, forcing them to make concessions.
It is unclear if ZTE will end up facing a similar fate as Huawei, or if they could get off lightly, or if it could actually be worse, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Filed in . Read more about China, FCC, Huawei, Legal, Privacy and ZTE. Source: bloomberg