Quectel Pushes Back on House China Leaders' Call for DOD, Treasury Blacklisting

Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Quectel pushed back Friday against the House China Committee’s call for DOD and the Treasury Department to blacklist it over ties to the Chinese government, Huawei and ZTE. House China Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Calif., urged Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Thursday to act on new information about Quectel's “multiple affiliations” with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the company’s collaborations with Huawei and ZTE. Those ties should qualify Quectel to appear on DOD’s blacklist of Chinese military-affiliated companies and Treasury’s similar “Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List,” the House China leaders wrote Austin and Yellen. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi asked the FCC last year about the threat Quectel and Chinese gearmaker Fibocom posed to U.S. IoT devices (see 2308080059). “We are disappointed to see continued and false allegations from” House China about Quectel’s “supposed cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party” and the Chinese military, Quectel Wireless Solutions President Norbert Muhrer said Friday. “We are an independent company publicly traded on the Shanghai stock exchange that operates internationally.” The company “maintains the highest industry standards of security and data privacy,” Muhrer said, noting its products are designed only for civil and commercial use cases: “We comply with all U.S. and international export control and sanctions laws. We do not sell to any person or entity in Russia, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria or Crimea, nor do we sell to military manufacturers anywhere.” Even “if Quectel were placed on the lists,” as House China leaders are asking, “the only impact would be to block U.S. investments in Quectel securities,” Muhrer said. “Quectel would not be barred from selling any of its products, in other words would not be blacklisted.”