back to article US lawmakers want blanket denial for sensitive tech export licenses to China

On Thursday, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee released a report urging tighter restrictions on export of critical technologies to China – including a policy of denial for all items controlled for national security reasons. "We can no longer afford to avoid the truth: the unimpeded transfer of US technology to China is …

  1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    "the unimpeded transfer of US technology to China is one of the largest contributors to China's emergence as one of the world's premier scientific and technological powers,"

    and, the unimpeded transfer of US technology to China to provide dirt cheap manufacturing capacity and maximise profits is one of the largest contributors to the US being one of the world's premier scientific and technological powers ...

    Glass houses and stones I feel.

    1. HuBo Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Massive offshoring of secret sauce manufacturing has been a bit of a Faustian bargain that we're increasingly paying the price for, it seems. A strategy of personal glutony rather than global competition (or even cooperation).

    2. Version 1.0 Silver badge
      Boffin

      It's interesting (not critical) to look at our views of the history between China and America ... these days America is unhappy with China but about 14,000 or more years ago people from China moved to the empty American continent to "create" Americans. Basically go back in time and the two countries were one country originally. My views that we are all humans and if we (as humans) are to survive climate change and other incidents in the future (like a fat asteroid impact) then we all have to work together and totally ignore individual raciality, skin colours, eye shapes, nose sizes etc etc ... we're all just a human, let's stop our mental crap.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Version 1.0 - Impossible.

        Homo homini lupus est. It is the fundamental (unwritten) premise of Capitalism. Now, are you against Capitalism ?

  2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    A Gazillion Dollar Question?

    The US House Foreign Affairs Committee's chair, Michael McCaul (R-TX), also argued for the necessity of the US to adopt a "win-at-all-costs mentality" when considering competition with China over intellectual property.

    Would such a necessity be likely to entertain the simplest of remedies with the transfer of significant and extremely appropriate to the task and threat funds to proprietary intellectual property holders who may be inclined to agree not to share what they have to share because of what it might all too easily do for competition and/or to opposition?

    And that is a equal opportunity available to any side competing for or in opposition to novel developments.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: A Gazillion Dollar Question?

      Oh, ....and is that not the American Dream Way easily swayed to turn itself into a Rigged Markets Destroying Nightmare?

    2. TheInstigator

      Re: A Gazillion Dollar Question?

      No - I think it's a code for America to be able to invade China if they so desire in the name of bringing freedom, democracy, the rule of law and all that other mighty fine stuff.

      They also might happen to find some Weapons of Mass Destruction in China while they do all this - or they may just aid a genocide to take place.

      You just never know with the US - I think it depends on how much money you can give them

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. MachDiamond Silver badge

    A big assumption

    This sort of tactic stems from the hubris in thinking that China and Chinese engineers and scientists can't figure anything out on their own. There are thousands of bright Chinese students attending US universities. Some uni's have so many that it's more likely to hear Mandarin spoken than American. It's often that the technologies of tomorrow are interesting research being done at universities today so much of the sort of advancements that China will have will come from the students of today returning home and having access to R&D funding and industry support that's evaporating in the US.

    The whole "national security" agenda is pretty silly anyway. The US State department is arguing the regulation of things that are already obsolete. When I was working in aerospace, there was a huge blanket on who could be hired and how we could share information even though everything we were doing could be learned from a handful of reference books and old NASA tech releases. Our novelty was how we were putting these known things together. We weren't rocket "scientists", we were rocket "engineers" making the known into something useful. The non-technical government wonks didn't understand the difference, but they could generate page upon page of senseless verbosity that sounded impressive and preserved their jobs.

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