WASH­ING­TON -Amer­i­can com­pa­nies should avoid do­ing busi­ness with Chi­na's two lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy firms be­cause they pose a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat to the Unit­ed States, the House In­tel­li­gence Com­mit­tee is warn­ing in a re­port to be is­sued to­day. The pan­el says US reg­u­la­tors should block merg­ers and ac­qui­si­tions in this coun­try by Huawei Tech­nolo­gies Ltd. and ZTE Corp, among the world's lead­ing sup­pli­ers of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions gear and mo­bile phones.

Re­flect­ing US con­cern over cy­ber-at­tacks traced to Chi­na, the re­port al­so rec­om­mends that US gov­ern­ment com­put­er sys­tems not in­clude any com­po­nents from the two firms be­cause that could pose an es­pi­onage risk. "Chi­na has the means, op­por­tu­ni­ty, and mo­tive to use telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies for ma­li­cious pur­pos­es," the re­port says.

The rec­om­men­da­tions are the re­sult of a year­long probe, in­clud­ing a con­gres­sion­al hear­ing last month in which se­nior Chi­nese ex­ec­u­tives of both com­pa­nies tes­ti­fied, and de­nied pos­ing a se­cu­ri­ty threat.

AP