The US Federal Communications Commission has embarked on efforts to withdraw US telecom service licenses granted to China Unicom and Pacific Networks and its wholly owned subsidiary COM-NET.


According to Arabnet, the US Telecom Regulatory Authority issued disclosure orders in April warning that it might withdraw licenses granted to three telecom companies under the control of the Chinese government - the two companies mentioned in today's statement and China Unicom.


China Unicom has been licensed for nearly 20 years to provide international telecommunications services in the United States.


None of the telecom companies has yet responded to a request for comment.


The Communications Commission said today that the companies have so far failed to address serious concerns about their US licenses.


The committee embarked on a similar procedure in December to withdraw the license of China Telecom, the largest Chinese telecom company, which had held a US license for about 20 years as well.


Many Chinese telecom operators also have data centers operating from within the United States, said Jeffrey Starks, commissioner for the Communications Commission.


But he added that the committee is not currently empowered with the necessary powers to deal with this potential threat to national security.


The committee voted unanimously in May 2019 in favor of preventing another Chinese state-owned telecommunications company, China Mobile, from providing services in the United States, citing the risk that the Chinese government could exploit it to spy on the US government.


The US Communications Commission has been tough on Chinese companies recently.


On Friday, the committee classified five Chinese companies as a threat to national security, under a law enacted in 2019 to protect US telecom networks.


Those companies are Huawei Technologies, ZTE Corp., Hytera Communications, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, and Dahua Technology.


In April, the committee agreed to a request from Google to use part of the submarine communications cable between the United States and Asia, but with Hong Kong avoiding.


Last week, Facebook withdrew a request to use an Internet cable between the United States and China, due to the US government's concerns about direct lines of communication.


In September, Facebook, Amazon.com and China Mobile withdrew a request to link San Francisco and Hong Kong within a fast cable system.