Chinese Tech Giants hires U.S Lobbyist firm Mercury Public Affairs
‘Yealink’ (a China-based global brand that specializes in video conferencing) could be putting U.S. consumers, companies, and even national security data at risk as this major Chinese phone maker brand has been observed sending encrypted messages to Chinese servers three times a day.
In a September letter obtained by Defense One, sen. Van Hollen, D-Md., explained a report that “raises serious concerns about the protection of audio-visual tools produced and sold to the superpower nation the U.S. by Chinese firm Yealink”.
The report details Yealink’s software that connects each phone to the local network. It permits users to make calls from their personal computers and network administrators to administer the phones. The software also allows Yealink to secretly record phone calls and even track the visiting websites of the users.
The report also focused on the two findings of Yealinks business split potential- one is “creating a heightened opportunity for threat actors because the Yealinks brand ties to Chinese administration” and the other one is “generally create a heightened device or network vulnerabilities.”
Recently, this major Chinese phone maker ‘Yealink’ come in limelight for hiring its first U.S. Lobbyist firm ‘Mercury Public Affairs” which consists of two former members of Congress as well as a former aide to the senator who raised concerns about the company, Yealink, last fall.
The firm Yealink is not the first telecom client of ‘Mercury Public affairs’ facing scrutiny for potential misuse of its technology. Till last year, Mercury lobbied on behalf of Q cybersecurity (majority stakeholder in the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group) that was added to the conglomerate’s entity list and accused of budding and providing surveillance to foreign administration authorities that “utilize these tools to malevolent target government officials, journalists’ business people, activists, academics, and embassy workers.
Mercury Public Affairs is striking ex- British officials to help lobby for Q Cyber-Technologies and its better-recognized subsidiary of the NSO Group as the Israeli surveillance firm faces a universal repercussion over accusations that it helped authoritarian regimes spy on dissidents.
Not only Yealinks, but also the other video surveillance equipment firms like Hikvision were highlighted for helping the Chinese administration. On 25th June 2021, the firm Hikvision was accused of helping the campaign of the Chinese government against Uyghur minority that has turned to ex-members of Mercury to lobby on its behalf as the United States imposes a series of measures limiting its ability to do business with American companies and investors.
In 2019, Elliot Broidy (Republican fundraiser) was embroiled in charges of influence-peddling on Mercury Public Affairs firm for participating in a plan on behalf of Qatar to propagate his hacked emails to well-known media outlets in a lawsuit filed.
China is a major cyber player in the cyber warfare arsenal among Asian countries, as the Chinese Nation took help from lobbying firm like ‘Mercury Public Affairs’ to run dark operations against other foreign giants.
