China has 46 military companies plus subsidiaries operating within the United States while disguised as civilian entities, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Wednesday. Among them are prominent names, such as the Huawei Investment & Holdings Company that owns Huawei Technologies Company (pictured in 2022). File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI |
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Jan. 31 (UPI) -- China has 46 military companies plus subsidiaries operating within the United States while disguised as civilian entities, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Wednesday.
The updated list is part of "an important continuing effort in highlighting and countering [China's] Military-Civil Fusion strategy" that "supports the modernization goals of the People's Liberation Army by ensuring it can acquire advanced technologies and expertise developed by [Chinese] companies, universities and research programs that appear to be civilian entities," the DOD said in a news release.
Among them are prominent names, such as the Huawei Investment & Holdings Company that owns Huawei Technologies Company, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), which has seven subsidiaries listed along with the parent corporation.
Both business entities are among those the department listed as military companies operating in the United States. They also are the target of recent House Foreign Affairs Committee efforts to enforce federal export-control rules in light of apparent violations by both firms.
"We are extremely troubled and perplexed about the Bureau of Industry and Security's (BIS) inability to effectively write and enforce export rules against violators, especially China," House committee chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and other members said in a Sept.14 letter to BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez.
The committee raised concerns that Huawei recently developed a smartphone that uses 7-nanometer chips that support 5G communications technology and were manufactured by SMIC in violation of U.S.export controls.
"BIS has continued to grant licenses to Chinese Communist Party-controlled companies, such as SMIC, worth hundreds of billions of dollars," McCaul said in the letter. "These companies support the CCP's military and have been responsible for manufacturing semiconductors that power Huawei's 5G devices in violation of BIS' export controls."
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Tuesday warned the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party that China increasingly is collaborating with nations that are hostile to the United States and implored lawmakers to do more to help Taiwan fight Chinese aggression.
China is coordinating with those nations and others to counter U.S. interests overseas, Pompeo told the committee.
Committee Chair Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said China is increasingly aligned with Iran, Russia and North Korea, which is raising tensions at the international level.
An example is Sunday's deadly drone attack on U.S.military forces at a base in Jordan.
President Joe Biden said Iran is tied to the organization that launched the attack.
"While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq," Biden said in a statement Sunday.
The DOD compiled is report on Chinese military companies in the United States in to meet the requirements of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021.
