WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden 's nominee to head the U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday vowed to protect U.S. telecommunications networks from Chinese companies, but she refused to commit to keeping telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies on a U.S. economic blacklist. "I would use the full toolkit at my disposal to the fullest extent possible to protect Americans and our network from Chinese interference or any kind of back-door influence," Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo said in testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, naming Huawei and ZTE Corp . "Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Republican Senator Ben Sasse both criticized her refusal to commit to keeping Huawei on the list. Those rulings are on appeal before U.S. circuit courts.Under pressure from the U.S. government, ByteDance has been in talks for months to finalize a deal with Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to shift TikTok's U.S. assets into a new entity to address U.S. security concerns.Raimondo also pledged to take "aggressive" action in response to trade practices from China. "China's actions have been anticompetitive," she added, saying she would use all available tools to "level the playing field."

Source: Economic Times January 27, 2021 02:59 UTC