China’s communist regime is harvesting DNA en masse to create a global genetic database that it can use to produce weapons and new forms of surveillance, according to lawmakers.
Revelations about the scope of China’s genomic ambitions came amid a March 7 hearing of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the subject of the bioeconomy and national security.
Committee Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) said the Chinese regime is attempting to create a database of the genetic material of every person on Earth.
“The CCP has made domination in biotech and genetic sciences a $9 billion dollar national priority. It’s executing a plan to build a DNA database on every man, woman, and child on the planet,” he said.
“The database includes Americans, whose DNA they’re collecting with large cyber hacks, corporate acquisitions, and other methods to include the collection of DNA from 8 million pregnant women globally.”
That test collects the DNA of both mother and fetus and sends the data back to China, where CCP authorities can access it.
The CCP’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is attempting to leverage genetic data to engineer new weapons and surveillance technologies, according to Mr. Gallagher.
“Genetically tailored weapons are already a trending topic in PLA military circles,” he said.
To that end, committee Ranking Democratic Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) said other CCP efforts included building devices to measure and affect the brainwaves of Party officers, as well as other types of genetic modification.
“The CCP is conducting human experiments to develop [better] soldiers,” he said.
“By some reports, it’s even researching mind-reading software to ensure CCP officials remain loyal to the Party.”
Similarly, he said, there is evidence that the regime has sought to artificially enhance its soldiers for battlefield roles using genetic experimentation.
To allow China to dominate the bioeconomy would be tantamount to allowing the CCP to etch the ideology of communism into humanity itself, according to Mr. Krishnamoorthi.
“The CCP cannot be allowed to impose its values on the very genetic fabric of humankind,” he said.
“If we lose, we face a bleak future of super-human soldiers and designer babies.”
Tara O’Toole, senior fellow at In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm that supports U.S. intelligence agencies, testified that the CCP considers biotechnologies as an essential front in its effort to solve economic, health, and food scarcity crises, as well as “to surpass the power and influence of the United States.”
“China has explicitly vowed to dominate the biorevolution and is aggressively pursuing comprehensive and ambitious strategies to accomplish this,” Ms. O’Toole said.
“We have to assume that every Chinese company is linked to the CCP and possibly to the PLA if they’re doing research relevant to the military.”
Mr. Gallagher characterized U.S. efforts to “set the rules of the road” in biotechnology as “a moral and ethical battle” with China.
“As the sector advances at an astronomical pace, the country who wins the race will be able to set the ethical standards around how these technologies are used,” he said.
