Chairman Pai Remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies

The Communications Act of 1934 outlines several reasons why our agency was created, including “for the purpose of the national defense” and “for the purposes of promoting safety of life and property.” Consistent with those charges, identifying threats to our communications networks and taking aggressive action to counteract those threats have been among the hallmarks of the Federal Communications Commission during my four years as Chairman. With communications technologies underlying virtually every aspect of our economy and society, and with the pace of technological change quickening, it’s become more important than ever that government be proactive. And that we have done. 

The previous FCC...allowed federal subsidies to be used by US telecommunications carriers to purchase equipment from companies with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and military, like Huawei and ZTE. And it issued a non-binding white paper on cybersecurity—on January 18, 2017, two days before Inauguration Day—that had no concrete plan of action and didn’t mention China at all.

We can and must no longer consider foreign threats to be sufficiently addressed with aspirational talk, bureaucratic indifference, or a naïve approach to the world that simply pretends these threats do not exist. I am optimistic that there will be no turning back.