US accuses China of developing ‘brain control weaponry’
The US has put China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 affiliated biotechnology research institutes on an export blacklist for allegedly helping the Chinese military to develop “brain-control” weapons.
The US commerce department on Thursday put the research institutes on the “entity list”, which bars US companies from exporting technology that originated in America to the Chinese institutions.
“China is choosing to use these technologies to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” said Gina Raimondo, US commerce secretary.
A senior US official said China was using emerging biotechnologies to try to develop future military applications that included “gene editing, human performance enhancement [and] brain machine interfaces”.
Michael Orlando, head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC), recently said the US was warning companies about Chinese efforts to obtain American technology in five key sectors, including biotechnology.
Separately on Thursday, Treasury put DJI, the world’s largest commercial drone manufacturer, and seven other groups on the “Chinese military-industrial complex companies” list for alleged involvement in facilitating the surveillance of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
US investors are banned from investing in any of the five dozen Chinese groups that are now on the Treasury blacklist.
The targets include Megvii and CloudWalk Technology, two facial recognition software companies, and Dawning Information Industry, a supercomputer manufacturer that operates cloud computing services in Xinjiang.
The others are Xiamen Meiya Pico, a cyber security group that works with law enforcement, Yitu Technology, an AI company, Leon Technology, a cloud computing company, and NetPosa Technologies, a producer of cloud-based surveillance systems.
“Today’s action highlights how private firms in China’s defence and surveillance technology sectors are actively co-operating with the government’s efforts to repress members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” said Brian Nelson, a top Treasury official.
The moves follow the blacklisting last week of SenseTime, a cutting-edge AI company that focuses on facial recognition software.
DJI’s investors include Accel and Kleiner Perkins, two big US venture capital firms. Accel invested $75m in DJI in 2015 and helped set up a $10m fund with backing from DJI to invest in drone technologies.
Kleiner Perkins has sold some of its stake in DJI and plans to comply with the requirement, said one person briefed on the matter. Kleiner did not comment, and Accel did not respond to requests for comment.
GGV Capital, a venture firm with offices in the US and China that has invested in Megvii, said it was, and would remain, in “full compliance with relevant rules and regulations”.
Sensetime’s US investors include Glade Brook Capital Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Silver Lake and Tiger Global Management. The firms either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
The dual commerce and Treasury actions are the latest effort by the Biden administration to make it harder for the Chinese military to develop technology that could harm US national security and punish Beijing for its persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
The Biden administration has accused China of engaging in “genocide” in the northwestern region where more than 1m Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been detained in camps and used as forced labour. The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in response to the situation.
The Senate on Thursday passed legislation that bars US companies from importing goods from the region unless they can prove that no forced labour was used. The White House supports the bill, which has already passed the House of Representatives.
The US official said Chinese authorities were using biometric facial recognition for mass surveillance in Xinjiang and had collected DNA samples from all Xinjiang residents from age 12 to 65.
In addition to the Chinese research institutes, the commerce department placed another 22 Chinese groups on the entity list. Some were targeted because of their role in developing submarine communications cables, which are a focus for China.
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