IC Technology & Cyber — 2026-08-10

House Select Committee Finds Chinese State Telecoms Remain Embedded in US Internet Infrastructure Despite FCC License Revocations Creating Cyber Risk

BLUFFCC license revocations without physical removal left Chinese state carriers positioned to support future intrusions through equipment and relationships that current law cannot reach.

The House Select Committee on the CCP released a bipartisan 49-page report on August 4 finding Chinese state-owned carriers remain deeply embedded in U.S. internet infrastructure despite FCC action 12. The FCC denied or revoked Section 214 licenses for China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom between 2019 and 2022, but the report found those actions did not remove the firms' equipment, data-center footholds, or network relationships 2Salt Typhoon links, House committee says" data-source="The Record (Recorded Future News)" data-url="https://therecord.media/chinese-hackers-telecoms-house" data-rt="secondary" data-otype="trade_press">3. The investigation followed FBI and CISA confirmation in November 2024 that PRC-affiliated actors compromised U.S. telecom networks in the Salt Typhoon campaign, and included sworn interviews with eight company officials conducted under subpoena in September 2025 2. Investigators tied China Mobile International's network to routes reaching 58 CISA-identified Salt Typhoon server address groups at least 192 times, and found China Unicom formalized a cooperation agreement with U.S.-sanctioned firm Integrity Tech in November 2023, the same period Integrity Tech infrastructure served as the control layer for a Flax Typhoon-operated botnet 23. The report separately documented nearly 109,000 unauthorized routing incidents by Chinese and Hong Kong-linked networks claiming U.S. internet addresses between January 2018 and May 2025, more than 4,200 of them tied to China Mobile-controlled networks 2.

Analysis
FCC license revocations against China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom stripped covered Section 214 status but left equipment, interconnection agreements, and data-center leases intact, letting the state-owned carriers operate outside the licensing perimeter entirely. This is a structural gap Congress can only close through remedies, expanded Team Telecom and ICTS jurisdiction, Covered List designations, funded rip-and-replace, that carry no existing statutory authority. China Unicom's Integrity Tech tie and the routing anomalies sharpen the stakes given those firms' links to prior CCP intrusions, though the committee itself cautions the BGP and infrastructure record does not establish deliberate malicious intent or knowing complicity by carriers' U.S. personnel. Reporting rests on the committee's own release, with trade press summarizing rather than independently verifying the technical record.

4 sources

Stranger Pings: Chinese Telecom Companies Infiltrate U.S. Infrastructure - House Select Committee on the CCP
Congressional report warns Chinese telecoms remain embedded in US networks despite FCC restrictions - Industrial Cyber
Chinese telcos maintain deep US presence despite Salt Typhoon links, House committee says - The Record (Recorded Future News)
Chinese telecom firms kept footholds in US networks despite federal crackdowns, House probe finds - Nextgov/FCW