U.S. Congressman Mark Green, a Republican representing Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District, is reportedly co-sponsoring legislation to protect U.S. technology from Chinese espionage.
This, according to Foreignpolicy.com, which said the legislation “would place certain technology on the U.S. Commerce Department’s export control list and impose sanctions on individuals who violate those controls.”
Green granted an interview to the website, in a question-and-answer format.
“Very clearly, as we go forward and they transition to a much stronger nation with global influence, we don’t want to create an enemy. But they’re already doing things like stealing our technology, and that’s why I think President Donald Trump, he is the first one to really see this,” Green said.
“China needs to know we see something going on because this has really been going on for years. And you’ve got the Defense Department sitting over there going, ‘Hey guys, hey guys.’ You’ve got the State Department over there saying, ‘Hey, let’s do more business. Let’s do more deals.’ And now the government as a whole is beginning to say, ‘Woah, this isn’t cool,’” he added.
Green said that if “that’s confrontational to the Chinese,” then “too bad.”
“Stop stealing our stuff.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced the U.S. Senate legislation.
Green’s co-sponsor in the U.S. House, meanwhile, is Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat.
“Both pieces of legislation, which have strong bipartisan support and are expected to pass once leadership brings them to the floor in the fall,” according to Foreignpolicy.com
“China’s IP theft has cost the GDP in the United States something upwards of $600 billion a year. Our GDP is what allows us to build the military, what allows us to protect ourselves. For example, Motorola in 1997 had 80 percent of the cell towers in the world and networks to run those cell towers, 80 percent market share, and they were a $17 billion company. Then they did a deal with Huawei. Huawei stole their technology, turned around, and sold it subsidized to the Chinese government. In 2011, that $17 billion in 1997 was sold to Nokia for $900 million. That’s 50,000 jobs in America gone, billions of dollars off our GDP,” Green told the website.
“What we’ve done is created a bill that further restricts transfers of American technology to China. We basically put in—I don’t want to call it a speed bump—but a gate,” Green said of the legislation. “Placing these items on the Department of Commerce’s export list tells these businesses, ‘OK, you want to sell this particular type of technology, maybe it’s AI, to a company in China. You have to get permission, basically a license, to do that.’ It’s another way of looking at this before it goes to China.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
[…] The Tennessee Star reported last month, Green is also co-sponsoring legislation to protect U.S. technology from Chinese […]
A commendable effort but I am doubtful if our government can stop the Chinese from stealing information stored on American computer systems.
The sad part is that China didn’t just steal or stuff, we gave it to them!
American Unions and their overpaid employees forced stock price driven CEO’s to give away our manufacturing assets to the Chinese in return for low labor costs. All so that American could have low cost tchotchkes!
Great job, Representative Green!