A group of U.S. senators is asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) why it is working with a Chinese biotech firm and warning that doing so is giving China a competitive edge and putting U.S. security at risk.
BGI, the Chinese biotech firm in question, has already been blacklisted by both the Department of Defense and the Commerce Department for its criminal business practices and its links to the Chinese military, but the USDA continues to work with the company on the Earth BioGenome Project, which is an effort to map the genomes of over 1.5 million species to catalog life on earth.
The USDA has awarded this Chinese company $1 million in U.S. tax dollars for its part in this decade-long project. BGI also holds leadership positions on four of the project’s nine subcommittees. And the most concerning leadership position it holds is on the subcommittee of IT and Informatics — meaning it has control on the key systems of the whole project.The senators, including Roger Marshall of Kansas, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Susan Collins of Maine, have sent a letter to the USDA asking the department if it has taken adequate measures to safeguard important data to prevent China from weaponizing the information.
“U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. led a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requesting information about their relationship with BGI, a genomic data collection firm deemed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to be linked to China’s People’s Liberation Army. Since 2018, USDA has awarded over $1 million to BGI in research grants through collaboration with its Agriculture Research Service (ARS),” the senator wrote in a Tuesday press release.As the agency’s chief research division, USDA-ARS must be extra vigilant in safeguarding U.S.-funded research that has potential to be weaponized against the U.S., especially when projects involve countries of concern, like China. Research partners and contracts must be thoroughly vetted to identify potential threats to U.S. security whenever genomic modification research or dual use research of concern (DURC) is involved,” the senators wrote.
Last year, the Department of Defense placed the firm on a sanction list for supporting the ‘modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army,’ and the Department of Commerce imposed trade restrictions on it in March. Two of its affiliates are also put on the Commerce Department’s blacklist in 2022 for their role in ‘conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.'”
China is one of the most dangerous practitioners of intellectual espionage in the world, stealing science and technology from any company or country foolish enough to allow Chinese companies to become integral parts of their research and manufacturing process. And every piece of information they steal ends up benefiting the Chinese military and is weaponized for use against China’s enemies — which happens to be the whole world.
Marshall spoke to the Epoch Times about his letter, and noted, “Our government must take extreme caution to prevent sponsoring research that gives any sensitive materials and intellectual property to the Chinese Communist Party.”
The senator added that the Chinese government could use this genetic information to create bio-weapons that threaten not just the U.S., but all life on earth, and they warn that China is “weaponizing biotech in preparation for strategic advantage in a new domain of biological warfare.”
Epoch also noted that BGI has been blacklisted for its part in aiding the Chinese military.
