The U.S. levied sanctions against numerous Chinese entities this month after it said that the communist nation was using emerging biotechnology to create “brain-control weaponry” and other technology that creates a serious risk to U.S. national security.
“New intelligence shows China is using technologies like gene editing, and brain machine interfaces to enhance military capabilities and control its own people, machines that could allow a Chinese commando to discharge a weapon with just a thought, not a trigger finger,” Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin said. “This month the Biden administration targeted the emerging threat by levying sanctions on 37 Chinese biotechnology companies that have ties to this research that experts say include so called ‘mind control weapons.'”
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe warned that the U.S. is not going to use the same questionable practices that China is. “We’re not going to place our own soldiers, sailors, and airmen at risk, which is what the intelligence tells us the Chinese are willing to do,” he said. “They want to advance at any costs, including those that are harmful to their own population.”
“The Pentagon says Beijing already uses these technologies, including biometric surveillance tools and facial recognition to track dissidents and journalists and to suppress the Uyghurs,” Griffin added.
The U.S. Commerce Department said in a statement on December 16th:
Today, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) took action to address the ongoing threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy presented by the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s efforts to develop and deploy biotechnology and other technologies for military applications and human rights abuses. BIS is also taking action against entities operating in the PRC, Georgia, Malaysia, and Turkey for diverting or attempting to divert U.S. items to Iran’s military programs.
The final rule issued by the Commerce Department said that the actions against Chinese entities were due to the communist nation using “biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end uses and end users, to include purported brain-control weaponry.”
“The scientific pursuit of biotechnology and medical innovation can save lives. Unfortunately, the PRC is choosing to use these technologies to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups. We cannot allow U.S. commodities, technologies, and software that support medical science and biotechnical innovation to be diverted toward uses contrary to U.S. national security,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo. “The U.S. will continue to stand strong against efforts by the PRC and Iran to turn tools that can help humanity prosper into implements that threaten global security and stability.”
A senior U.S. official told The Financial Times that China was seeking to use emerging biotechnologies to try to develop future military applications that included “gene editing, human performance enhancement [and] brain machine interfaces.”