U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf says the activities of Chinese television maker TCL Electronics Holdings are under review is a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Wolf said DHS would soon issue a business advisory cautioning against using data services and equipment from firms linked to China and said it was “reviewing entities such as the Chinese manufacturer TCL,” the world’s third largest manufacturer of TV sets, Reuters reports.
Wolf said it had been discovered this year that the firm had “incorporated backdoors into all its TV sets, exposing users to cyber breaches and data exfiltration.”
Wolf said DHS would soon release a “Strategic Action Plan to counter the People’s Republic of China” that would draw on Trump’s 2017 national security strategy and a 2020 document laying out a U.S. strategic approach to Beijing. He did not elaborate on this.
In October, state media cited TCL founder and chairman, Li Dongsheng, as saying that U.S. actions like unilateral tariff increases on China's goods, as well as its other trade measures against other countries, have complicated things.
"Such moves have added an American factor to the economic globalization and industrial chain restructuring. It's an irrational and irregular factor, making things more complicated," Li said.
TCL Electronics founder and chairman, Li Dongsheng, is a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress.
TCL employees at the company's television assembly line in Huizhou, Guangdong province.
