China criticizes telecom supply-chain proposal at WTO; U.S. says it's a 'matter of national security'

China has raised concern at the World Trade Organization that a proposed Federal Communications Commission rule unfairly paints firms like Huawei and ZTE as cybersecurity threats and could exclude them from the build-out of next-generation “5G” networks by U.S. telecom providers in rural areas.

The U.S. responded that China’s repeated concerns over the proposal were moot. The FCC rule “deals exclusively with matters of national security” and is outside the jurisdiction of the WTO, the U.S. said, according to a...