NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
China’s state-linked telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies is expanding control over large swaths of the global internet infrastructure that poses an “existential” national security threat, according to a former U.S. intelligence leader.
Retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, former director of the National Security Agency, warned in an interview that the Chinese government, through Huawei, in 2000 controlled 2% of the global telecommunications infrastructure and today controls over 50%. Projecting outward, by 2030, Beijing will have nearly 75% control of internet infrastructure, he said.
“Now, if you control the global telecommunications infrastructure, you control the world, right?” Adm. McConnell told Inside the Ring.
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“You can turn it off, you can slow it down, you can exploit it, you can use it for destruction or degradation.”
Adm. McConnell, also director of national intelligence from 2007 to 200, called the problem “an existential threat at strategic proportions” that can be resolved by using European and Asian companies to replace Huawei infrastructure.
The United States has been negligent in allowing China to dominate the global telecommunications infrastructure, said the NSA chief from 1992 to 1996.
Now chairman of the board at Ericsson Federal Technology Group, the retired three-star is sounding the alarm about the dangers of Chinese global internet controls.
Ericsson is partnering with several other non-Chinese vendors of communications gear and all are trying to convince the federal government to take action to prevent the Chinese internet takeover, he said.
Beijing is expanding its telecommunications footprint through programs like the Digital Silk Road, part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, that seeks to build telecom infrastructure in the developing world.
“The Chinese will go into a place like Panama or Peru or Argentina, and they’ll say, ’Well, we’re going to provide your telecommunications infrastructure and we’ll give you a loan that’s 1%. And oh, by the way, we’ll redo your harbor and we’ll build you a railroad from where your main export travels down to the harbor. And we’ll do it at 50 to 70% cost of what you can get from Ericsson or Nokia or Samsung,” Adm. McConnell said.
Other vendors can’t compete based on the Chinese government subsidizing Huawei with an estimated $150 billion, he said, noting that Huawei provides mass population surveillance.
The Chinese at one point realized that promulgating their model around the world allows China to build a global surveillance state, he said.
One example of the danger involves the current international SWIFT bank transfer system, a trusted tool for global financial transactions. The system for financial exchanges moves over $100 trillion every three days.
“Now, can you imagine if that network is manipulable,” Adm. McConnell said. “Because if you can’t move money at network speed, you’re back to barter, you know, chickens and goats for steel or aluminum. And, and that just doesn’t work. So we are incredibly vulnerable.”
Cyberattack threats also are increasing with the emergence of artificial intelligence that is expanding the reach and speed of digital break-ins.
Adm. McConnell said AI is advancing the attack side of the threat faster than the defensive side can react.
Chinese cyber attackers using AI can conduct 40,000 network scans per second, complicating corporate security forces that can also apply AI scans but are limited in finding which vulnerability attackers may exploit to gain unauthorized access to a network.
Some positive steps have been taken by corporations, with one in three CEOs recognizing this is a problem that needs to be addressed while security investments remain insufficient, Adm. McConnell said.
“Along comes artificial intelligence and makes it 100 times worse. So we’ve got a real problem. The Chinese are taking over global telecommunications. They have artificial intelligence and they can find vulnerabilities at network speed, which is speed of light,” he said.
Arrest highlights CCP link to illicit U.S. real estate
The recent arrest of a California realtor on intelligence-related charges highlights what analysts say is the Chinese Communist Party’s use of real estate for money laundering and potentially funding clandestine intelligence operations by the Ministry of State Security, the civilian spy service.
Zhang Wanying, the real estate agent living in Irvine, California, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday as she tried to board a flight to Shanghai. She was charged with acting as an illegal Chinese agent for what the FBI said was Beijing-directed surveillance of the family of Taiwan President Lai Ching-chi in Seattle.
Ms. Zhang was linked by the FBI to Chinese intelligence based on her attendance at the Beijing University of International Relations. The CIA has identified the school as a training ground for intelligence officials that is closely linked to the MSS, according to a complaint submitted in federal court.
A 2011 report by the CIA-based Open Source Center identified the university as founded in 1964 to “train intelligence personnel for the Investigation Department and (undercover) at Xinhua News Agency.”
The complaint did not mention Ms. Zhang’s work as a real estate agent. A posting on the real estate website Zillow shows Ms. Zhang as an agent for JC Pacific Capital.
Chinese Communist Party elites have used real estate purchases as a way to circumvent Beijing restrictions that prohibit Chinese from moving more than $50,000 a year out of the country.
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, revealed the money laundering through real estate agents in a 22-page report made public in August 2025.
Chinese money laundering networks use “money mules” through teams that structure financial transactions that can evade required currency reports.
Chinese nationals bring large amounts of cash into the U.S. that are then deposited into multiple accounts, often held by U.S.-based Chinese nationals and businesses, the report said.
In some cases, the money laundering involves the purchase of cashier’s checks listing the payee as a shell company or listing the payee as a U.S.-based company or person in the real estate industry.
“[Chinese money laundering networks] may use money mules or shell companies to purchase real estate, which may serve as an investment for the [money laundering network] or a wealthy China-based client…,” the report said.
Another example cited in the report was a Chinese national “with unexplained wealth” who initiates a wire transfer related to a real estate purchase or purchases cashier’s checks made payable to a real estate company.
“The customer may be accompanied by a real estate agent at the time of purchasing the cashier’s checks,” the report said.
A second case involving real estate involved a U.S.-based escrow company that received funds from an unaffiliated, foreign-based shell company that is used to buy real estate in the United States.
In another case, a small U.S.-based business in the real estate or electronics industry receives wire transfers from Mexico, China, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates with no known links to these countries.
Money launderers also use Hong Kong trading companies with shell-like characteristics to send funds to Chinese nationals residing in the United States, real estate escrow or title insurance companies, with no apparent business or economic purpose, the report said.
The illicit funding activities are based on strict capital control measures adopted in China in 2016 after authorities saw a spike in funds being moved out of the country.
Foreign exchange rules restrict the amount of Chinese currency that can be converted into dollars to about $50,000 a year and restrict Chinese from directly transferring local currency abroad.
“Consequently, many Chinese citizens attempt to circumvent these currency control laws for a variety of reasons,” the report said.
The report stated that Chinese illicit money laundering in the U.S. during a five-year period until 2025 was $312 billion. Real estate purchases within that total were more than $53.7 billion.
U.S., China discuss nuclear visits
The Trump administration has held discussions with Chinese officials on conducting reciprocal visits to nuclear facilities, according to a U.S. official.
The topic of nuclear visit exchanges was among the topics raised by China in meeting with U.S. officials earlier this year, including possible visits to Department of Energy laboratories and similar Chinese facilities.
The talks were described as very preliminary and held in the context of what the administration has said were Chinese underground nuclear tests in violation of an international moratorium on such testing.
China conducted a secret underground nuclear blast in 2020 that was detected by a seismic station in Kazakhstan and was aimed at improving Beijing’s nuclear warfighting, according to Christopher Yeaw, assistant secretary of state for arms control and nonproliferation during remarks at the Hudson Institute.
Mr. Yeaw said the test’s time and place were confirmed by a seismic monitoring station in Makanchi, in southern Kazakhstan.
Additional steps toward the reciprocal U.S. and Chinese visits could be reached in the near future.
The discussions were first reported by CNN.
Disclosure of the possible nuclear exchange comes as President Trump has called for conducting U.S.-Russian-Chinese nuclear talks.
It could not be learned if the matter was discussed during the summit between Mr. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last month in Washington.
During the first Trump administration, China refused to join three-way arms talks and officially has said that it would not do so until U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals are commensurate with China’s small warhead stockpiles.
The U.S. and Russia have deployed warheads in the range of the 1,550 warhead limit under the now-expired New START arms treaty.
China’s warhead stockpile is estimated by the Pentagon to be around 600 warheads but is rapidly expanding to 1,000 in the coming years, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual report on the Chinese military.
• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.
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