The Biden administration’s controversial renewal of the US-China Science & Technology Cooperation Agreement presents an awkward closing chapter for the president’s legacy. China has systematically stolen US trade secrets and technology, hacked into telecommunications networks, and spied on American military facilities using drones. Nevertheless, the Red Dragon is essentially being rewarded with a renewed information-sharing agreement that favors its interests above ours.
China Owns Drones
Recent reports attribute the proliferation of US drone sightings to Chinese-made machines. Chinese companies form a sort of Asian Silicon Valley of drone manufacturing, controlling some 90% of the global consumer drone market with superior technology and pricing dominance. In 2022, the US government warned that these drones could be co-opted for nefarious use. As Just the News reported:
“Enough Chinese-made recreational drones have been spotted in restricted airspace in the Washington, D.C. area to raise foreign espionage concerns among U.S. government agencies and lawmakers alike.
“The drones, which are manufactured by DJI and sold at major retailers, can be altered by users to override the geofencing limitations that prevent the devices from flying over sensitive locations.”
Drone Déjà Vu?
This is drone déjà vu, not only in relation to the current flocks clustering around US military facilities both domestically and abroad but to a Chinese seizure of a US underwater glider (drone) in December of 2016, viewed as a test of the incoming president's mettle. Trump’s tariff threats are not idle to China: Its already shaky economy is struggling with persistent deflation that undermines public confidence there.
Back at home, Republicans are outraged at Biden’s decision to renew a deal that would have better served the nation had it been left to the incoming administration. Whether out of spite against Trump or as a cozy lob to China, the renewal opens the US technology market to yet more Chinese espionage foxes in the American national security chicken coop. To add insult to injury, it was recently revealed that Joe Biden issued pardons to Yanjun Xu and Ji Chaoqun (both Chinese spies who were convicted of espionage) and to a relative of a top CCP official, Shanlin Jin, convicted of possessing over 47,000 images of child pornography.
“Fueling Our Own Destruction”
The contrarian attitude of the outgoing Biden administration borders on sabotage where China is concerned. Many scientific academics joined Republicans in opposition to a renewal of the now 45-year-old Science & Technology Cooperation Agreement. Ten Republican members of the US House of Representatives urged the president to let the agreement lapse, correctly warning that “The Chinese Communist Party has abused the openness of the American scientific community to steal American research and coopt [sic] it for its own malign purposes…. The United States must stop fueling its own destruction.”
Many current US policies and treaties disproportionately favor China, gaining the CCP competitive market control of drones using stolen US technology so that drone technology dominance can, in turn, be employed to spy on US military installations, jets, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carriers, stealing yet more US technology. Concurrently, China has engaged in what Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) has called “by far the worst telecom hack in our nation’s history,” targeting the AT&T and Verizon phone records of senior government and political figures, including Donald and Eric Trump and JD Vance. Moves like this threaten US security and technological dominance when they grant a disproportionate advantage to China over American interests.
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