Rulemaking on China Buying Advanced US Tech Needs Urgent Action, Lawmaker Says

A ranking Republican lawmaker is calling for the government to speed up its plans to establish rules on exports of critical U.S. technologies to China, expressing a “deep concern” at the current rate of the regulatory rollout.

“While our regulatory process moves slowly, China is sprinting ahead to acquire critical technology by any means necessary,” U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, seen by Reuters and dated Oct. 18.

A commerce department spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email on Nov. 1 that “the department has received the letter and is currently reviewing it.”

The letter seeks an update and timeline on rules, mandated by a law passed last year, to beef up oversight of exports of critical U.S. technologies. The regulations are meant to quell purported risks to national security amid a rising threat from China.

That threat was highlighted during a recent Washington panel discussion where a U.S. defense official sounded the alarm over Beijings current lead in a number of emerging revolutionary technology industries. Panelists at the headquarters of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said Americas relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must change when it comes to technology transfers.

Michael Brown, the director of the Defense Innovation Unit at the Department of Defense, warned at the Oct. 29 panel about the near-term direct costs of Chinas technology thefts, including how U.S. companies will lose market share due to Chinas “Made in China” 2025 plan, which he said is a large import substitution plan to transfer economic output from other countries to China.

China has built up its technology largely on what its stolen from the West, with the costs of intellectual property theft amounting to an estimated $600 billion annually, while inextricably threatening U.S. national and economic security.

The United States has set technology standards for the past 50 to 80 years, particularly since World War II, Brown said. However, he said thats under threat now that China leads in a number of important emerging technologies such as hypersonics, quantum sciences, autonomy, artificial intelligence (AI) genetic engineering, and others.

McCaul, in his letter, asked about how the U.S. government should go about implementing rules so that an American company doesnt end up aiding China in obtaining its military technology.

“How does the U.S. government ensure engagement by the U.S. private sector with Chinas high-tech sector does not lead to a U.S. company supporting Chinese efforts to acquire cutting edge technology for Chinas armed forces?” Brown asked.

The law mandating the rules, known as the Export Control Reform Act, sought to make it harder to export keyRead More – Source