On Jan. 25, members of Congress introduced a proposal called the BIOSECURE Act, which would ban the use of U.S. tax dollars for the utilization of genetics companies from China that collaborate with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
This is a good bill, but one must ask: How in the world have we allowed such a practice to continue to this day? Why does the executive branch of the U.S. government need a law for such a commonsense rule that it could have made policy long ago?
We should have had an all-of-government, if not all-of-society, effort since at least the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 to end reliance on China, especially companies linked to its military. We should most especially have limited the release of genetic data to Beijing.
As noted in the House announcement, but not in most of the bill’s mainstream media coverage, the proposed law is in part meant to stop the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from using U.S. genetic data for malign purposes, including genetic targeting of U.S. citizens with bioweapons.
“Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) collects genetic data of Americans [and] uses it for research with the Chinese military,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) said in the bill’s announcement. Mr. Gallagher chairs the House Select Committee on the CCP. He and his Democrat co-chair introduced the House version of the bill.
“The CCP will undoubtedly use the genetic data collected by BGI to further its malign aggression, potentially even to develop a bioweapon used to target the American people,” Mr. Gallagher noted.
NBC News quoted Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who co-chairs the committee, as noting that the law would “drive BGI from the U.S. market.”
Mr. Gallagher told NBC of “the threat of bespoke bioweapons that could target either an individual or a class of individuals.”
“And for your [readers] who might think that that’s the stuff of science fiction or in the distant future, it’s not,” he said. “We know that’s ... a technology that the CCP would love to perfect.”
Mr. Evanina noted that Beijing could use knowledge of the genetic deficiencies of Americans to blackmail individuals. He said the PLA has also sought genetic data to create super-soldiers, including, for example, the use of DNA from people in the Himalayas to engineer troops that can operate efficiently at high altitudes.
A similar bill to the one introduced on Jan. 25 banning the use of China’s genetic companies was introduced in the Senate by the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).
The bill is obviously necessary, and its bipartisan, bicameral co-sponsors are skillful heroes fighting the good fight inside the Beltway.
But, like the 2020 law, it is far too little, too late. We should not need new legislation for each government purchase from China that puts Americans at risk. This is a failed reactive defense rather than a proactive offense that aims at the adversary’s center of gravity. Such laws should apply beyond just U.S. appropriations to the U.S. public generally and with global effect.
Extraterritorial laws against the CCP are a big ask and apparently not currently politically feasible when it comes to genetic data loss. This is likely because CCP-linked corporations plow some of their profits into campaign donations and, as a result, have too much influence in U.S. politics. Any such influence from a genocidal and totalitarian entity such as the CCP, including when moderated through U.S. entities, should be banned.
