A former commander of America's cyber forces told CBS News on Tuesday that China's growing offensive cyber and supply-chain capabilities pose an acute threat to U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, urging faster defensive measures and closer international coordination. His remarks crystallize a debate that has rippled through Washington, allied capitals and the technology industry about how to protect networks that underpin everything from banking and emergency services to commerce and national defense.

Speaking in a wide-ranging interview, the retired officer said the risk is not hypothetical. He emphasized that Chinese actors have both the technical reach and logistical access—through equipment vendors, software dependencies and undersea cable routes—to create persistent exposure across commercial networks. "This is not merely espionage in the abstract," he told CBS. "If exploited at scale, it could disrupt services Americans rely on every day and undercut our strategic resilience."

The interview comes as governments worldwide reassess exposure to vendors with links to foreign states, and as Washington has tightened export controls and procurement rules aimed at equipment perceived to be high risk. U.S. regulators and lawmakers have moved over recent years to restrict certain Chinese suppliers from critical parts of the 5G rollout, and congressional staffers say the hearing has renewed interest in expanding rules to cover cloud services and software supply chains.

Analysts say the former commander's warning reflects a shift from episodic cyber intrusions toward sustained influence operations that exploit commercial interdependence. "Telecom is the nervous system of modern societies," said a cybersecurity expert unaffiliated with the interview. "When that system is vertically and horizontally integrated with suppliers you can't fully vet, the attack surface multiplies."

Beijing, which has long rejected allegations that it conducts state-directed cyber operations for strategic gain, typically characterizes such Western concerns as politically motivated. Chinese officials and state media have argued that technology decoupling harms global trade and technological cooperation, a stance that complicates multilateral efforts to draft binding cyber norms.

International law provides limited clear guidance on what constitutes an armed attack in cyberspace, and attribution remains technically and politically fraught. That legal ambiguity constrains overt retaliatory options and makes coalition building more important. The retired commander urged allies to establish clearer red lines, share forensic capabilities and harden civilian networks together—steps he called both practical and stabilizing.

Industry leaders face hard trade-offs between cost, speed of deployment and security vetting. Telecom operators, many of them global companies, must now balance commercial pressures with mounting regulatory scrutiny and potential national-security implications. For smaller states in the Global South, access to affordable network equipment is a persistent development priority, complicating unified allied responses.

The interview underscores how deeply technological competition has become enmeshed in geopolitics and everyday life. Policymakers will need to weigh containment and cooperation, reinforce legal and technical norms, and accept that protecting critical infrastructure will require sustained investment and diplomatic work as much as occasional headline-making sanctions or forthright warnings.