China’s tightening grip on radio frequencies critical for advanced technologies – from 5G networks to AI-driven weapons – threatens to eclipse US innovation and military readiness, senators and analysts warned on Wednesday, urging Congress to break a years-long stalemate over modernising America’s outdated spectrum policies.
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At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, lawmakers clashed over how to balance urgent economic priorities with national security needs as China rapidly outpaces the US in deploying next-generation wireless infrastructure.
The debate, fuelled by China’s rapid implementation of 5G wireless systems, centred on legislation to revive long-expired federal authority to auction airwaves – a delay experts say has handed Beijing a strategic edge in shaping the future of communications, artificial intelligence and military innovation.
“China is using spectrum as a tool for military and economic dominance. Delays here risk letting them lock in global standards we cannot match,” said Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who chairs the committee and is an author of the Spectrum Pipeline Act.
Introduced last year, the bill would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to auction 2,500 megahertz of federally controlled airwaves – vital for 5G and defence systems – within eight years.
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Cruz contended that the US is choking growth by clinging to decades-old rules that reserve swathes of spectrum for dying uses like over-the-air TV broadcasts, while China’s state-backed telecoms giants like Huawei Technologies and ZTE install 6G prototypes in bands the Pentagon deems critical for radar and missile defence.