GOP senators urge Biden to sanction Chinese firm Huawei Cloud
Samantha-Jo Roth
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Nine Republican senators urged the Biden administration on Tuesday to impose sanctions and take other action against Huawei Cloud and other cloud service providers that they believe pose a threat to national and economic security.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and eight others sent a letter to the State, Commerce, and Treasury departments, warning that Huawei Cloud and other cloud computing companies based in China “are increasingly engaging with foreign entities — in some cases sanctioned foreign entities — that are directly challenging the national security and economic security interests of the United States and our allies and partners.”
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The senators also emphasized that Huawei Cloud recently “launched its ‘Sky Computing Constellation’ in co-sponsorship with Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute (also known as ‘Spacety China’)” in 2021. They noted the project was recently sanctioned by the Treasury Department for providing “significant satellite imagery assistance to entities in the Russian Federation.”
The letter was signed by Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Steven Daines (R-MT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Katie Britt (R-AL), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), and Dan Sullivan (R-AK). The senators also urged the administration to add Alibaba Cloud to the Commerce Department’s export control list for its ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
“We therefore urge Commerce not only to list Alibaba Cloud, but also to deny license applications to export to the company,” the senators wrote. “U.S. companies should not be aiding Alibaba Cloud with exported U.S. technology.”
The letter also detailed how Alibaba opened two cloud data centers in the heart of Silicon Valley in 2015.
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“These data centers reportedly provide a variety of cloud computing services that initially focused on [People’s Republic of China] companies based in the U.S. and have gradually expanded services and products to international clients,” the senators said.
The group also suggested that the administration look into China’s other cloud service providers, such as Tencent Cloud and Baidu Cloud, which they said could also pose threats to U.S. security.