Senators urge Trump administration to safeguard critical military from China

Donald Trump

A bipartisan group of more than two dozen Senators today urged the Trump administration to safeguard critical military and dual-use technology from China. There can be no question that China seeks to surpass the US both economically and militarily and become the world's foremost superpower, and neither the federal government nor the private US companies should aid and abet that effort, the senators wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

"As such, we implore you to reject any proposal to soften restrictions on the transfer to China of US-made military technologies and advanced dual-use technologies, including semiconductors," said the letter, which among others was signed by Senators Chuck Schumer, Marco Rubio, Dianne Feinstein, Susan Collins, Sherrod Brown, Mark Warner, Ted Cruz, Kamala Harris Chuck Grassley and John Cornyn.

"We urge you not to compromise lawful US enforcement actions against serial and pre-meditated violators of US law, such as ZTE," the lawmakers said.

They said it was particularly critical when the violators are state-owned and part and parcel of China's policies and practices designed to strengthen the country's national security innovation base and essential tools of efforts to spread China's influence in other countries that pose national security threats to the US.

"Export control and sanctions laws should not be negotiable, because fidelity to the rule of law is a key part of what distinguishes the US from a country like China that is ruled by a Communist dictatorship," the letter said. To support its military modernisation, the Senators argued, China uses a variety of methods to acquire foreign military and dual-use technologies.

Several cases emerged in 2016 of China using its intelligence services and employing other illicit approaches that violate US laws and export controls to obtain national security and export-restricted technologies, controlled equipment and other materials, they said.

"Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party regards these sensitive technologies as essential for China's military modernisation and is accelerating its efforts to acquire such technologies through both legal and illegal means, including cyber theft, civil-military integration policies, coercion through joint ventures with foreign companies, targeted investment and exploitation of the access of private Chinese nationals to such technologies," wrote the Senators.

"We must guard against such efforts and remain vigilant in protecting our national security innovation base," they said.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Marco Rubio alleged that the Chinese state-directed telecommunications firms like ZTE pose a threat to the US.

"It's time to wake up to this threat because we have two ways forward. There can be a balanced relationship between two great powers, leading to a world that is stable and secure in prosperity. Or we can have an imbalanced world in which a rising power in China does so at the expense, at the direct expense, of a falling status quo power in the United States," he said.

Rubio urged President Donald Trump to take this issue seriously, listen carefully to those in his own administration who understand this threat holistically for what it is.

"I urge them to move in a direction that recalibrates the structure of our relationship with China economically, and that does not allow not just ZTE but numerous other telecom communications from continuing to grow and spy at our expense," he said.

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