FCC Votes to Strip All Chinese Labs of Electronics Certification Authority

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to advance a proposal that would strip every testing lab in China and Hong Kong of its ability to certify electronics for sale in the U.S. The agency estimates that roughly 75% of all U.S.-bound electronics are currently tested in Chinese facilities, a level it now considers a national security risk. FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the commission is pursuing actions to limit the interconnection capabilities of entities it considers security threats. Every device that emits radio frequencies requires FCC equipment authorization before it can be legally sold. That process requires testing by an FCC-recognized lab, and manufacturers have long relied on Chinese labs because they sit next to the factories that produce the hardware. According to compliance data compiled by MarkReady, 126 of the FCC's 591 globally recognized test labs are located in mainland China or Hong Kong. Fifty of those are in Shenzhen alone, and the wider Pearl River Delta corridor accounts for 65% of the Chinese total. Twenty-seven of the affected facilities are Chinese subsidiaries of major Western testing firms, including Intertek, SGS, TUV Rheinland, and Bureau Veritas. The shift will not be seamless. Basic FCC certification testing runs between $400 and $1,300 at Chinese labs, compared with $3,000 to $4,000 at U.S. equivalents. The FCC already banned 15 state-owned or government-affiliated Chinese labs between September and February under its original "Bad Labs" order. Thursday's vote extends that prohibition to all remaining labs in China, regardless of ownership. In a separate 3-0 vote, the commission also advanced a proposal to ban China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom from operating data centers in the U.S. The FCC had previously revoked those companies' retail telecom licenses but had not addressed their remaining wholesale and infrastructure operations. The new proposal would also consider banning U.S. carriers from interconnecting with any company on the FCC's national security "Covered List" or any carrier using equipment from Huawei or ZTE. Thursday's vote opens a public comment period expected to last 60 to 90 days, followed by a final rule and transition period. The FCC has been steadily expanding its restrictions on Chinese technology, banning imports of new foreign-made consumer routers in March, new foreign-made drones in December, and proposing restrictions on Chinese involvement in undersea cables last year.