House Lawmakers Ask Trump Admin to Block CCP-Backed Huawei’s Operating System

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May 21, 2025 - 09:59 Updated: May 21, 2025 - 09:52
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House Lawmakers Ask Trump Admin to Block CCP-Backed Huawei’s Operating System
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is urging the State Department, Commerce Department, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to block the diffusion of Chinese tech giant Huawei’s HarmonyOS around the world, recalling the years-long process to remove Huawei technology from government infrastructure the first time around.
“Given the serious national security and geopolitical implications associated with foreign adversary operating systems, it is critical that HarmonyOS be thoroughly scrutinized and that we work with our allies and partners to prevent it from becoming embedded in devices across the world,” committee chair Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and ranking member Rep, Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) wrote to the agency heads in a May 16 letter made public on May 20.
Huawei is a Chinese company that the U.S. government considers closely tied to the Chinese military and a national security risk. The United States began restricting use of Huawei technology in 2017, sanctioned the company in 2019, brought criminal charges against it in 2019 and 2020, and passed legislation to prohibit the FCC from using Huawei equipment in 2021.

Huawei has been blacklisted by the U.S. Commerce Department, the FCC, and is considered by the Pentagon as a Chinese military company. “Simply put, in the universe of bad actors, Huawei is as bad as it gets,” the letter reads.

Huawei this week launched the first HarmonyOS-powered laptop, marking a significant milestone in the proprietary operating system it launched in August 2019, three months after the United States blacklisted the tech company. Huawei executives have indicated they had been working on the operating system as early as 2014.

The lawmakers warn that devices with HarmonyOS “could provide a direct channel for data collection, potential cyber exploitation, and digital authoritarianism by the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” noting that CCP laws require any entity operating in China to “support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.”

“The operating system, or future updates or patches to the system, could contain backdoors and vulnerabilities designed to facilitate espionage,” the letter reads.

The lawmakers added that allies should be made aware of the risk as well. The United States had been ahead of the curve in curbing Huawei’s access, and in recent years, other governments have sought to do the same.

In 2020, the UK banned any new use of Huawei components in the nation’s telecom infrastructure based on U.S. sanctions, setting a 2027 deadline to phase out existing components. In 2020, the Japanese government announced funding and tax incentives for Japanese companies to develop technology that would reduce reliance on Huawei. Germany last year announced it would phase Huawei out of its 5G network, a process estimated to take through 2029.

“Rather than being forced to attempt to remove HarmonyOS from sensitive devices around the world after these risks become widely appreciated, we should use diplomacy and intelligence sharing to encourage the global community to continue to utilize trusted operating systems,” the letter reads.

The warning comes at a time when tech executives and Trump administration officials are making a push to promote the American AI “stack,” with the reason that global adoption of American technology is critical to keeping the United States ahead of China or other foreign adversaries in the AI race.

Huawei has positioned HarmonyOS as a direct competitor to iOS, Microsoft, and Android. The lawmakers add that Huawei’s “AppGallery,” the HarmonyOS equivalent to the App Store, could give the CCP direct control over the code of these apps or whether users can download them.

Chinese media in 2024 reported that some 2.5 million developers are making apps for HarmonyOS, which operates on 900 million devices globally.

The lawmakers additionally recommended that the government study HarmonyOS’s architecture and codebase, saying their examples of risk were “far from” the only national security concerns they had.

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