By – Jawahar Mishra
Highlights – National security has been put on hold for money, and this is how America itself is making China a ‘superpower’!
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The US government’s ‘double game’ has been exposed. Five administrations, despite concerns about national security, helped American companies sell spy technology to China. China is ‘renting’ banned AI chips through loopholes like ‘cloud services.’ Four attempts to stop this have failed under pressure from the tech lobby.
America behind China’s power !
A shocking revelation has come to light, highlighting a stark difference between America’s words and actions. According to an Associated Press (AP), while the US government issues stern warnings to China about national security and human rights abuses, over the past several decades, under five Republican and Democratic administrations, the US government has not only allowed its own tech companies to sell technology to Chinese police, government agencies, and intelligence agencies, but in many cases, has actively assisted them.
This is happening at a time when the two countries are locked in a battle for technological supremacy. The US is well aware that China is using its high-tech technology to strengthen its military and intelligence agencies. Despite this, a loophole has been left open, which China is exploiting to its fullest extent.
China has the key to every lock.
US lawmakers have attempted to close this backdoor four times since last September. The biggest loophole is cloud services. The US has banned the direct sale of powerful AI chips to China. However, instead of purchasing these chips, Chinese companies are renting them from US companies (like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services) and training their AI models.
Whenever a proposal to close this loophole has been made, an army of over 100 lobbyists from tech companies and their organizations has become active. As a result, the proposal has failed all four times.
According to an AP report, over the past two decades, US tech and telecom companies have spent millions of dollars on lobbyists working on bills affecting China-related trade.
Tech companies argue that if restrictions are imposed on them, China will develop its own technology, which will be more dangerous for the US. They also say this will put American jobs at risk.
The US government itself became a ‘profit sharer’
The issue isn’t limited to lobbying. In recent months, President Trump himself has struck major deals with Silicon Valley companies that have further tied the US economy to technology exports to China.
In August, Trump, ignoring the concerns of national security experts, announced an agreement with chipmakers Nvidia and AMD. Under this deal, export controls on the sale of advanced chips to China were lifted, in exchange for a 15% cut of revenue for the US government.
US taxpayers’ money….
This month, Trump announced that the US government had acquired a 10 percent stake in Intel, worth approximately $11 billion. This means that US taxpayers’ money is now involved in the profits these companies earn by selling technology to China. However, Intel maintains that this government stake is “passive” and has no bearing on governance.
Use of US technology for atrocities
This ‘cloud’ loophole is not unique. The US also imposed sanctions on China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, but those sanctions were limited to low-tech police equipment (such as handcuffs, helmets, and batons). Newer technologies like security cameras, surveillance drives, or facial recognition were never covered. Several attempts were made to address these shortcomings between 2006 and 2013, but all failed.
The investigation also found that the US Commercial Service, the export-promotion arm of the US Department of Commerce, played a key role in connecting American vendors with Chinese security agencies for more than a decade. In 2007, the department offered a webinar for just $35 on how to enter the Chinese security market.
The most tragic aspect of this is the human rights abuses. There is strong evidence of the use of US technology in the atrocities against Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province.
Gulbahar Haitiwaji, an Uighur woman who was held in Xinjiang detention camps for more than two years, says she was constantly monitored by a system based on US technology, with cameras even installed in the restrooms.
Another Chinese activist, Zhou Fengsuo, a 1989 Tiananmen student leader, says, “It’s all about profit.”
