CCP In The Machine: How China’s Tech Continues To Infiltrate American Hardware

In May, U.S. energy officials released bombshell findings about China’s ability to turn out the lights across America. Rogue communications devices were found inside Chinese solar power inverters. In addition, undisclosed cellular radios were found inside Chinese batteries. These Chinese Communist Party sabotage efforts are reminiscent of CCP-tied Huawei’s infiltration of our communications network, which gave Beijing the ability to disrupt our nuclear arsenal communications.

Beijing seeks the ability to remotely access and destroy the systems upon which Americans depend for everyday life and upon which our military depends to project power across the globe. The U.S. rightly began to remove Huawei technologies from our market in 2019 because of security risks. Since then, ironically, we’ve allowed China to flood our market with network-connected technologies such as routers, drones, cranes, healthcare devices, cameras, green tech, and more, which collectively constitute a deeper penetration of our vital systems. This trend must be reversed through new laws and better law enforcement to block and remove all Chinese network-connected technologies. 

American tax dollars should not fund technologies that facilitate Chinese espionage and sabotage efforts. At the federal level, Congress should ban federal procurement of Chinese network-connected technologies. Congress should also codify President Trump’s Information and Communications Technology executive order from 2019 and fund ICT programs to block CCP tech. During March 2025 testimony, former Biden Administration official Dr. Rush Doshi argued that codifying Trump’s order “would let us prohibit certain [Chinese] goods,” especially power converters and network-connected technologies, “from being in the U.S. market.”

States must excise CCP network-connected technologies from their critical infrastructure and government systems. For example, Texas’ 2021 Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act (LIPA) forbids Texas businesses and government from contracting with China, Russia, North Korea and Iran on critical infrastructure, especially if foreign parties would gain remote access or control of the infrastructure. A 2023 Nebraska law prohibits the state from providing public funds to telecommunications providers that have not yet removed Huawei 5G hardware from their cell towers. Utah passed a 2024 law to end procurement of Chinese technologies such as computers and routers. All states should adopt these measures.

Furthermore, the U.S. must enforce the rule-of-law. The Chinese Communist Party has made tremendous gains at the expense of the U.S. in part because the U.S. and its allies have failed to enforce their own laws upon malicious CCP agents and entities. At a fundamental level, the two legal systems are incompatible because China’s laws require businesses to engage in espionage for the party-state, while America’s laws require data privacy. America must pivot and crush CCP lawlessness. Consumer fraud and data privacy laws must be tightened, and robust enforcement actions must be taken by both federal agencies and state attorneys general. 

In March 2025, the FCC’s Council on National Security opened an investigation into several telecommunications companies, including Huawei, for engaging in unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent business practices such as selling banned equipment in the United States. The FCC can go further by revoking telecom licenses from corrupt entities. Meanwhile, other federal agencies must get in the fight.

State AGs must enforce the law against Chinese manufacturers that embed hidden backdoors in products, and American companies that “white-label” such products must also be held accountable. For example, according to the federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) the Chinese company Contec sells healthcare monitors with embedded backdoors that provide Beijing with access to patient data along with the ability to manipulate readings of a patient’s vitals. AGs should investigate Contec for potential violations of consumer and medical data protections. As a recent FDA Safety Communication states, Florida-based Epsimed, which sells Contec products in the U.S., should also be investigated.

These security concerns are amplified by ethical concerns. Chinese green energy technologies are not only riddled with backdoors, they often rely on slave labor. Too many environmental activists have been hoodwinked into promoting cheap CCP hardware to “save the planet,” all while supporting slave labor and compromising our energy grid.

The United States 2019 actions against Huawei were a strong step, but since then we’ve lost ground. Rapid and concerted action is needed to protect our way of life against Chinese Communist Party sabotage, and to build an economic system based upon rule-of-law rather than communist infiltration and subversion.

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Michael Lucci is the Founder and CEO of State Armor, a 501(c)(3) non-profit advocating for state solutions to the global threats posed by the CCP. 

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.