Oversight Committee: Chinese Company’s Machinery Being Used at American Research Lab

The House Oversight Committee has claimed that technology created by a Chinese military company is currently being used at one of the top research facilities in the United States.

According to Fox News, a spokeswoman for the committee said that “we are aware that there is a BGI machine at Los Alamos,” referring to the top-secret lab in New Mexico where the atomic bomb was created during the Manhattan Project in the midst of World War II. BGI refers to the BGI Group, Beijing Genomics Institute, a CCP-linked biotech and genomics company, which the Pentagon has described as a “Chinese military company” as well as “China’s biotech national champion.”

The spokeswoman went on to say that the new BIOSECURE Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives on Monday, would forbid the further use of such technology at Los Alamos. Among other requirements, the law would mandate that any technology owned, operated, or controlled by foreign adversaries cannot be used at facilities that are funded by taxpayer dollars. The bill has since been referred to the Senate Homeland Security Committee for review.

BGI Group runs a large gene databank in China, and also has DNA sequencing contracts with various health firms and colleges all over the world. It has received funding from China’s largest state investment agency, the State Development and Investment Corp (SDIC).

In a statement, the National Security Commission on AI declared that BGI “may be serving, wittingly or unwittingly, as a global collection mechanism for Chinese government gene databases, providing China with greater raw numbers and diversity of human genome samples as well as access to sensitive personal information about key individuals around the world.”

BGI, along with two of its subsidiaries, has been placed on a trade blacklist by the Pentagon, due to claims that the company has engaged in the analysis and surveillance of genetic activities on behalf of the Chinese Communist government. The Department of Commerce has also accused BGI of using this information “in the repression of ethnic minorities in China.”