Cybersecurity Policy Report, Increased Foreign Ownership Reporting Would Curb China Concerns, FCC Told, (Nov 6, 2025)

By Jeff Williams

Saying that China’s “growing ambition to dominate the global telecommunications market has manifested across a range of industries, from drones to submarine cables” and is spurred by “aggressive industrial policies” that have given it “expansive leverage over key sectors,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) has called for the FCC to “broaden the scope of its foreign ownership reporting requirements to cover all applicants for licenses, permits, and other authorizations.”

Doing so would “streamline efforts to prevent China and other foreign adversaries from accessing the nation’s telecommunications network, while preventing states, entities, and individuals from circumventing reporting requirements,” FDD said in a filing posted by the FCC today in GN docket 25-166.

The FCC should also expand its definition of foreign ownership to include “entities controlled by, or subject to, the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary,” FDD said. “This expansion will stymie Beijing’s efforts to use its regulatory and legal architecture to coerce nominally independent firms into furthering the CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party’s] geopolitical ambitions.”

Among its recommendations, FDD said the FCC “should require applicants to certify whether or not they are owned or controlled by a foreign adversary, rather than simply requiring applicants to assert they are not under foreign adversarial control.”

The agency should also require “firms or individuals under its regulatory jurisdiction to report on their interactions with a foreign adversary government, including its officials or officers of its dominant political party,” FDD said.

The FCC should also require regulated entities to “to inform the Commission of any deficiencies in complying with its requests to solicit information regarding their relationships with foreign adversaries” and “expand sourcing for its list of ‘foreign adversaries’ to include the Consolidated Screening List and other designations.”

News: FederalLegislation DataSecurity