Two Republican senators have introduced a bill on Wednesday (7 February) that would ban the US government from buying or leasing products made by Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE.
Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Marco Rubio introduced the legislation citing concerns over the Chinese government using hypothetical backdoors in their devices to spy on American government officials.
"Huawei is effectively an arm of the Chinese government, and it's more than capable of stealing information from US officials by hacking its devices," Cotton said in a statement. "There are plenty of other companies that can meet our technology needs, and we shouldn't make it any easier for China to spy on us."
Rubio added that Chinese telecom companies such as Huawei are "directly linked to the Chinese government and communist party".
"For national security reasons, we cannot allow a foreign adversary to embed their technology in US government systems or critical infrastructure," he said.
The bill introduced by Cotton and Rubio is similar to one introduced by two other Republican lawmakers in the House
