Why Is the U.S. Supplying Technology to China’s Military?
.
By Robert Pittenger & Roslyn Layton
November 21, 2020
After all of the ballots are counted and certified, it will be time for America’s leaders to get back to work. One policy issue that broke through during this unprecedented election cycle is that Americans can continue to expect a hard-line position on China when it comes to economic and trade issues.
For years, the Chinese government has been hard at work to steal U.S. technologies, often in plain sight. Motivated by its ambitions of global dominance, the People’s Republic of China increasingly has skirted America’s export controls to pirate sensitive dual-purpose technology from commercial goods and apply those to its military capabilities. This open-air theft poses a glaring threat to the United States’ national security and could upend our country’s military and economic superiority.
Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping’s military-civil fusion has eliminated the line between the country’s civilian and military sectors. This initiative uses state-owned enterprises to acquire technology, which is then passed to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Recently, the target has become semiconductors—tiny, sophisticated chips that power modern technology. Common appliances, like smartphones, rely on semiconductors to function. So do defense systems.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/11/21/why_is_the_us_supplying_technology_to_chinas_military_650569.html
