China vows countermeasures over US FCC ban on Chinese labs testing electronics for American market
China's commerce ministry said on Friday it firmly opposes the US Federal Communications Commission's vote to bar Chinese labs from testing electronics for the American market, warning it would take necessary countermeasures if Washington presses ahead unilaterally.
China has firmly opposed the United States Federal Communications Commission's vote to bar Chinese laboratories from testing electronic devices for the American market, warning on Friday that it would take necessary countermeasures if Washington persists in acting unilaterally.
China's commerce ministry said in a statement that the FCC's measures would seriously undermine the international economic and trade order, and urged the United States to immediately revoke them. It said Beijing remained open to resolving the dispute through consultation, but added that if the American side insists on going down what it called the wrong path, China would resolutely take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.
The dispute centres on a vote taken by the FCC on Thursday, 29 October, to restrict testing laboratories and certification bodies in countries that do not offer reciprocal access to American testing facilities. Before a phone, laptop, camera, router or other electronic device can be sold in the United States, it must pass through an FCC-authorised testing laboratory, which checks that it meets American technical standards.
China is by far the largest location for that work. FCC chair Brendan Carr has said that about 82 per cent of electronic devices were tested in China in 2025, and that less than 4 per cent were tested inside the United States. The commission argues that concentrating most testing in a single country that does not give American labs equivalent access creates security risks and leaves supply chains vulnerable to disruption.
Under the new framework, laboratories and certification bodies in countries without a mutual recognition agreement with the United States, or a comparable reciprocal trade agreement, would no longer be recognised for American device authorisation. China does not have such an agreement with the FCC, so Chinese labs would fall squarely within the restriction, even where they are operated by Western companies with no ties to the Chinese government.
The restrictions are scheduled to take effect in December 2028, and existing device certifications would remain valid, so products already approved would not automatically need retesting. The change would instead apply to future certification work, including measurements, technical analysis and test report preparation, giving manufacturers a transition period but forcing them to rethink where future devices are tested.
Beijing's response focused on that process as much as on the outcome. The commerce ministry said China had previously proposed negotiating a bilateral mutual-recognition agreement for testing and certification, but described the American side's attitude as extremely passive and negative. It accused the FCC of repeatedly introducing restrictive measures against Chinese products and companies, and said the latest step ran counter to the consensus reached by the two countries' leaders on stabilising economic and trade relations.
The vote is the latest in a series of American moves against Chinese technology on national security grounds. In May 2025, the FCC targeted testing laboratories owned or controlled by governments or companies identified as foreign adversaries, with around 29 labs losing recognition, and in July 2026 it voted to ban the sale in the United States of devices containing key hardware from Chinese companies on its national security list, including Huawei and ZTE. The new measure goes further because it turns on where a laboratory is located, not on who owns it.
For manufacturers, the practical question is where testing capacity will come from. Shifting a large share of the world's device testing out of China within about two years would require new laboratories, trained staff and accreditation in the United States or in countries the FCC considers acceptable, and could raise costs and lengthen the time needed to bring new products to market. Industry analysts quoted in coverage of the vote warned that the restrictions could disrupt global supply chains across the communications and electronics industries, a warning Beijing itself echoed.
What happens next is now a matter of timing and diplomacy. Washington has set a 2028 start date, Beijing has threatened countermeasures without specifying them, and both sides say they remain open to talks. If negotiations produce a mutual-recognition arrangement, the ban could be softened or avoided; if they do not, manufacturers, regulators and consumers will face a reordering of how the world's most widely sold devices are certified for the world's largest consumer market.
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