Hill Says Don’t Renew US-China Tech Deal

Members of the House Select Committee on China, including Chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc) and Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) are urging the Administration not to renew the US-China agreement on cooperation in science and technology.

In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday, the lawmakers charged that the Chinese Communist Party has previously leveraged the STA to advance its military objectives and will continue to do so.

The STA is slated to expire on August 27.

“The PRC continues to practice military-civil fusion, seeking to leverage civilian and commercial research for military and defense purposes,” the lawmakers wrote. “The evidence available suggests that the PRC will continue to look for opportunities to exploit partnerships organized under the STA to advance its military objectives to the greatest extent possible and, in some cases, to attempt to undermine American sovereignty.”

“The United States must stop fueling its own destruction. Letting the STA expire is a good first step,” they continued.

• Examples of Chinese Threats
  In their letter, the lawmakers pointed to reports that the agreement may have led to the development of technologies that later were used against the United States:
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration organized a project with China’s Meteorological Administration to launch instrumented balloons to study the atmosphere. Just a few months ago, the PRC used similar balloon technology to surveil US military sites on US territory.
• The Agriculture Department has over a dozen active research projects with PRC entities including technologies with clear dual-use applications, such as developing techniques for analyzing satellite and drone imagery for irrigation management.

“It should come as no surprise that the PRC will exploit civilian research partnerships for military purposes to the greatest extent possible,” the lawmakers wrote. “The PRC openly acknowledges its practice of military-civil fusion.

According to the State Department’s website, military-civil fusion ‘is the elimination of barriers between the PRC’s civilian research and commercial sector, and its military and defense industrial sectors.’ The PRC uses academic researchers, industrial espionage, forced technology transfers, and other tactics to gain an edge in critical technologies, which in turn fuels the People’s Liberation Army modernization.”