WASHINGTON : The U.S. Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to approve legislation to prevent companies such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd or ZTE Corp that are deemed security threats from receiving new equipment licenses from U.S. regulators.
The measure would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from reviewing or issuing new equipment licenses to companies on the FCC’s “Covered Equipment or Services List." The FCC in June had voted unanimously to advance a plan to ban approvals for equipment in U.S. telecommunications networks from those Chinese companies even as lawmakers pursued legislation to mandate it.“The United States, without any evidence, still abuses national security and state power to suppress Chinese companies," Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson at China's foreign ministry, said in June.