U.S. probing Chinese telcos over internet and cloud risks

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is investigating China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom over concerns that the firms could exploit access to American data through their U.S. cloud and internet businesses by providing it to Beijing, three sources familiar with the matter said.

Authorities at the Commerce Department are running the investigation, which has not been previously reported. They have subpoenaed the state-backed companies and have completed “risk-based analyses” of China Mobile and China Telecom, but are not as advanced in their probe of China Unicom, the people said, declining to be named because the probe is not public.

The companies still have a small presence in the United States, for example, providing cloud services and routing wholesale U.S. internet traffic. That gives them access to Americans’ data even after telecom regulators barred them from providing telephone and retail internet services in the United States.