U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reasserted his call for a Clean Network program aimed at thwarting aggressive cyber intrusions by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on public and private U.S. telecommunications and technology infrastructure. Specifically, Pompeo announced the following five new lines of effort in the Clean Network program:
- Clean Carrier: “To ensure untrusted People’s Republic of China (PRC) carriers are not connected with U.S. telecommunications networks. Such companies pose a danger to U.S. national security and should not provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States.”
- Clean Store: “To remove untrusted applications from U.S. mobile app stores. PRC apps threaten our privacy, proliferate viruses, and spread propaganda and disinformation. American’s most sensitive personal and business information must be protected on their mobile phones from exploitation and theft for the CCP’s benefit.”
- Clean Apps: “To prevent untrusted PRC smartphone manufacturers from pre-installing –or otherwise making available for download – trusted apps on their apps store. Huawei, an arm of the PRC surveillance state, is trading on the innovations and reputations of leading U.S. and foreign companies. These companies should remove their apps from Huawei’s app store to ensure they are not partnering with a human rights abuser.”
- Clean Cloud: “To prevent U.S. citizens’ most sensitive personal information and our businesses’ most valuable intellectual property, including COVID-19 vaccine research, from being stored and processed on cloud-based systems accessible to our foreign adversaries through companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent.”
- Clean Cable: “To ensure the undersea cables connecting our country to the global internet are not subverted for intelligence gathering by the PRC at hyper scale. We will also work with foreign partners to ensure that undersea cables around the world aren’t similarly subject to compromise.”
The U.S. State Department is also building a coalition of “5G Clean Countries and Carriers.” The website currently lists the following.
https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/
