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Biden Removes Chinese Military Tech Company from Blacklist
Chinese tech company Sugon worked on nuclear weapons research, Uyghur surveillance
President Joe Biden issued an executive order dropping a ban on investment in a Chinese technology company known for its cooperation with the Chinese military and the surveillance of Uyghur Muslims.
Sugon, a Chinese company blacklisted by the Trump administration in November 2020, did not appear on the updated blacklist of Chinese companies announced by the White House this month. The United States had prohibited Americans from investing in Sugon over the company's sale of supercomputers to the Chinese military for nuclear weapons research. The company's cloud computing and facial recognition technology has reportedly been used for the surveillance of Uyghur Muslims.
Michael Sobolik, a fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council who researches China issues, told the Washington Free Beacon the Biden order was "strange" due to its omission of Sugon, though it otherwise makes steps in the right direction by extending sanctions on other Chinese tech giants such as Huawei and Hikvision.
"It's strange that the Biden administration removed Sugon from the list," Sobolik said. "This company's resources have supported the CCP's draconian surveillance in Xinjiang—specifically, the Orwellian model of ‘predictive policing.' Some members of Congress have also warned that Sugon has also been involved in the PLA's nuclear and hypersonic glide vehicle testing programs. Sugon seems to check both boxes of the EO, which raises questions as to why it's delisted. The administration may have a perfectly reasonable explanation; if so, officials should clarify their decision."
The decision comes amid intensified tech competition between the United States and China. On Tuesday, the Senate passed a massive spending package intended to increase funding for American technological and scientific research, along with several other areas of competition.
Some Biden administration allies have ties to Chinese technology firms. Biden's nominee for the director of national intelligence's general counsel position admitted in May to doing work for Huawei while employed at one of the Chinese tech powerhouse’s top Washington lobbying firms. A member of the administration's trade transition team managed a Chinese firm tasked with raising funds for Chinese companies listed as banned in the Biden administration's executive order.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
China Praises Biden’s TikTok Reversal
China’s Ministry of Commerce praised President Joe Biden for reversing a Trump administration decision to halt U.S. downloads of the Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok.
Gao Feng, a ministry spokesman, applauded the Biden administration's reversal, saying Chinese businesses should not be politicized by the United States.
"The U.S. should treat Chinese companies fairly and justly and refrain from politicizing trade issues," Gao said. "All countries have the responsibility to develop their own industries and enhance the well-being of their people, and China is pleased to see the economic development and technological progress of other countries."
The Trump administration took on TikTok during its final year in office, citing the potential for the Chinese Communist Party to collect data on the Chinese app, as well as other national security issues. A series of orders from the White House and legislation in the Senate banned the app from government devices and ultimately from being downloaded by U.S. citizens. But federal courts held up the orders and legislation, and they never took effect. Former Trump administration official Keith Krach told the Washington Free Beacon in September 2020 the app allows China to "spy" on American children.
The Chinese Communist Party requires companies operating in China to share data when the government requests it. A document leaked in October 2020 shows an ex-CCP official dictated content policies for TikTok in its growth stage, and China has openly discussed an interest in greater party control over companies operating within the country.
China’s Ministry of Commerce praised President Joe Biden for reversing a Trump administration decision to halt U.S. downloads of the Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok.
Gao Feng, a ministry spokesman, applauded the Biden administration's reversal, saying Chinese businesses should not be politicized by the United States.
"The U.S. should treat Chinese companies fairly and justly and refrain from politicizing trade issues," Gao said. "All countries have the responsibility to develop their own industries and enhance the well-being of their people, and China is pleased to see the economic development and technological progress of other countries."
The Trump administration took on TikTok during its final year in office, citing the potential for the Chinese Communist Party to collect data on the Chinese app, as well as other national security issues. A series of orders from the White House and legislation in the Senate banned the app from government devices and ultimately from being downloaded by U.S. citizens. But federal courts held up the orders and legislation, and they never took effect. Former Trump administration official Keith Krach told the Washington Free Beacon in September 2020 the app allows China to "spy" on American children.
The Chinese Communist Party requires companies operating in China to share data when the government requests it. A document leaked in October 2020 shows an ex-CCP official dictated content policies for TikTok in its growth stage, and China has openly discussed an interest in greater party control over companies operating within the country.
Obama’s Man in China Now Beijing’s Man in Washington
Former ambassador Baucus appears regularly on Chinese propaganda outlets
As the novel coronavirus wreaks havoc across the world, the Obama administration's ambassador to China has found a second lease on life as a pro-China talking head on regime propaganda outlets.
Former ambassador Max Baucus has given at least four different interviews to Chinese propaganda outlets in the last two weeks, repeatedly comparing the U.S. rhetoric about China to both the McCarthy era and Nazi Germany.
"Joe McCarthy [and] Adolf Hitler … rallied people up, making people believe things that were really not true," Baucus said during a May 12 interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), a regime mouthpiece. "The White House and some in Congress are making statements against China that are so over the top and so hypercritical, they are based not on the fact, or if they are based on fact, sheer demagoguery, and that's what McCarthy did in the 1950s."
Since his retirement in 2017, Baucus has been a reliable critic of the Trump administration's increasingly confrontational China policy—chiefly the decision to wage a trade war with Beijing. He once warned that the White House's decision to impose additional tariffs was a "slap on the face" to China. But Baucus's recent comments in the pandemic era have been more sympathetic to China—and critical of the United States—than ever before.
His post-retirement public statements praising China have coincided with his burgeoning overseas investments. In 2017, he founded the Baucus Group, a consulting firm that advises both American and Chinese businesses, according to his U.S. Chamber of Commerce biography. He also sits on the board of directors for Ingram Micro, a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned conglomerate, as well as the board of advisers for Alibaba Group, one of China's largest tech companies.
Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, said that it was "inappropriate" for a former ambassador to speak ill about his own government on a foreign propaganda outlet.
"It's like going to China and … talking about your own government that way in meetings. I think that would be pretty inappropriate," Lohman said. "So it would be inappropriate speaking on state media."
Baucus's public statements have received considerable attention from Beijing's propaganda outlets. When the former ambassador compared President Donald Trump's criticism of China to rhetoric used by Adolf Hitler and Joe McCarthy during a May 6 interview with CNN, Chinese propaganda outlets quickly amplified Baucus's comments about how Trump was "a little bit like Hitler in the '30s" and that Americans were worried about "getting their heads chopped off" if they voice their disagreement with the U.S. government's China policy. Xinhua News Agency, a state-owned outlet, extensively cited Baucus's attacks in a May 8 article, using it as evidence that the Trump administration is attempting to "deflect criticisms about their blunders by blaming China." The article was syndicated in party-controlled mouthpieces such as Global Times and People's Daily, according to the Investigative Research Center.
Baucus then appeared on CGTN on May 12 to double down on his Hitler and McCarthy comparison, blaming the Trump administration for flaming "sheer demagoguery."
"[The current U.S. rhetoric] is somewhat reminiscent, nowhere close to that yet, somewhat reminiscent of the McCarthy era and somewhat reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s," he told CGTN.
The former ambassador also gave an exclusive interview to Global Times on May 14, where he said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's claim that the virus may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory "makes no sense" and accused both Democrats and Republicans of being tough on China to score political points in an election year.
Baucus again appeared on CGTN on May 15, where he claimed that America is "sliding toward a form of McCarthyism" because the Trump administration is pressuring policymakers to be tough on China. The former ambassador did another CGTN media hit on May 16, this time appearing alongside his wife Melodee Hanes, who blamed the presidential election for making dialogue "difficult."
"There are a lot of pretty smart people in the United States who are not speaking up. People in office, moderates, especially moderates on the Republican side," Baucus said on May 15. "They are afraid to speak up, they are intimidated, intimidated by President Trump. And it's kind of sliding toward a form of McCarthyism—how it is politically incorrect to speak the truth, speak the truth to power."
When the Washington Free Beacon called the phone number listed for Baucus's home address, no one answered. A lawyer representing Baucus Group, the ambassador's consulting firm, also did not respond to a request for comment.
While Baucus rarely enjoyed this much attention from Chinese state media outlets after his retirement, this is not the first time he has spoken to Chinese media outlets in recent years. Baucus also gave an exclusive interview to People's Daily in March 2018, criticizing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods as the "wrong policy" and "too confrontational." He has also spoken at events backed by the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, a registered foreign agent of the Chinese government according to a 2018 congressional report.
Lohman, the Heritage Foundation expert, said that while Baucus has the right to appear on any domestic and foreign outlets, he should not have addressed a propaganda outlet with the same degree of candidness that he did with CNN.
"I think he must have gotten wrapped up in the media performances because when you shift from CNN to Global Times or CGTN, you've gone to an entirely new level," he said. "And there I think you just have to express yourself differently. It's not an appropriate place to air political differences."
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