China has been accused of stealing U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets in recent years, and former U.S. counterintelligence officials have recently warned that China is also seeking to obtain DNA genetic data on Americans in an effort to win the race to control global biological data, posing a security threat to the United States. China has been going around collecting genetic identification data in a variety of ways in an effort to build the world’s largest genetic database. Particularly criticized by outsiders is the use of genetic data by the Chinese Communist authorities to monitor and suppress Muslim minorities such as the Uighurs in Xinjiang.
A Commercial and Security Threat to the U.S.
In a recent television interview with CBS, Bill Evanina, the recently retired director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, revealed that when a serious outbreak of the new coronavirus occurred in Washington State last March, China-based BGI Group, the world’s largest biotechnology company, offered to help manage the advanced genetic database. (BGI Group), the world’s largest biotechnology company based in China, offered to help manage a state-of-the-art neo-coronavirus testing laboratory, provide technical expertise, high-throughput sequencing technology and even make a donation. UW Genetics has also proposed to several states, including California and New York, to establish and operate new coronavirus testing centers.
The Wall Street Journal also reported in mid-January that after the outbreak of the new coronavirus, UW attempts to distribute its products contacted at least 11 U.S. states to push for access to government-run labs for testing products or to establish entire labs.
U.S. officials were very suspicious and concerned about UW’s offer and its ties to the Chinese government, the report said. Bill Evanina, the top counterintelligence official, then ordered a bulletin to state governments, hospitals, clinics, and interested groups warning that “outside powers may collect, store, and use biometric information obtained through new coronavirus tests” and that the genetic data would go to an unknown destination. The UW has denied any involvement in the actions described in the warning.
Reuters recently reported that more than 40 publicly available documents and research papers in English and Chinese show that the UW Group (BGI) has a collaborative relationship with the Chinese Communist Party‘s military, including cooperation with military experts in the field of supercomputers and participation in military projects to reduce exposure to the effects of plateau reactions.
U.S. officials have also said that China has conducted genetic data collection efforts in the United States. Huada Genetics acquired the U.S. third-generation sequencing company Complete Genomics (Complete Genomics) in 2013. Harbin Pharmaceutical Group also acquired bankrupt health product maker GNC (Kenanxi) in September 2020. Currently, there are at least 23 China-linked companies engaged in genetic testing in the United States.
Experts: the topic is sensitive and easily politicized
Meanwhile, China issued “Regulations on Human Genetic Resources Management” in June 2019, stipulating that foreign organizations and domestic and foreign institutions established by foreign organizations and individuals, including those established by organizations, enterprises or individuals in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, are not allowed to collect, collect, trade, export or exit human genetic information resources in China, while Chinese genetic companies, medical institutions, etc. may not conduct international cooperative research on Chinese human genetic information or pass human genetic information out of China with foreign institutions without permission.
Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Voice of America that commercial considerations are relatively normal in the U.S.-China competition to control biological data, and that the issue can easily be politicized and securitized because mutual trust between the two sides is exhausted.
The commercial considerations are more normal,” he said. Considering that blood samples may be used to develop drugs, a product that from a national security point of view, both sides may always speculate on the premise that they see each other as potential adversaries, and always assume the worst. Some people in China have spoken in the previous paragraph, including New Crown as a genetic weapon developed by the Americans, and even the previous Sas have raised it. There is also a group of people in the U.S. who think it is a genetic weapon, a biological weapon, developed by China.”
Taking advantage of the Epidemic to strike around
In addition, U.S. officials have said that the Chinese government used the global pandemic crisis of the new crown virus to collect as much genetic data as possible. According to Chinese media reports, China has signed international clinical (phase III) agreements for inactivated vaccines with a number of countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Peru, Morocco and Argentina, amid competition for vaccine development and testing by major countries around the world. China may be able to obtain genetic data from tens of thousands of participants in these countries.
Some reports indicate that for Nigeria and some other hesitant countries, Chinese officials have hinted that these countries may have limited access to the vaccine if they do not participate.
In addition, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping proposed the establishment of an international mutual recognition mechanism for health codes in the form of QR codes based on nucleic acid test results at the 15th Group of 20 (G20) summit on Nov. 21 last year, hoping more countries would participate. However, Xi said nothing about how to protect the privacy of personal information or the potential impact of establishing such an extensive genetic database.
Aiming to build the world’s largest genetic database
Separately, the New York Times reported that Communist authorities have been systematically collecting blood samples from adult and underage men across the country since 2014 in an effort to build a genetic mapping database of some 700 million men, providing authorities with a powerful new means of high-tech surveillance. And the operation peaked with the Ministry of Public Security’s announcement in November 2017 of plans to create a national database.
Chinese media reports that China already has the world’s largest repository of genetic material, with a total of 80 million pieces of genetic data.
“A report released on June 17, 2020 by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said that China is building the world’s largest police DNA database through the mass collection of DNA samples, including Tens of millions of people without criminal records.
According to the report’s research team, the Chinese government has collected DNA samples from 35 to 70 million male Chinese citizens since the end of 2017. Most of these citizens do not have the ability to refuse government collection, nor can they interfere with how the government uses this genetic information. Authorities can trace a man’s male relatives through his blood, saliva or other genetic material.
This report also says that China conducted DNA collection from ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang in 2013 and 2016, respectively, in the name of annual health checks. Since the end of 2017, this program was expanded to other regions of China. The report said the Chinese government’s mass collection of DNA samples from its nationals, and the use of DNA databases along with other surveillance tools, will allow authorities to significantly increase their ability to suppress civil society in the name of maintaining stability.
Anhui-based Anke Biological Engineering Co. is using the male DNA database to build a “DNA Skynet,” a police system that combines video surveillance with big data, the report said.
Experts: must develop norms to prevent abuse
Huang Yanzhong said the reality of the rapid advancement of genetic and biotechnology has highlighted the need for the international community to step up its efforts to establish norms to prevent abuse.
It’s not just China alone,” he said. That is, how the future of this gene technology, biotechnology, in fact, not only genes, gene editing, highlights the human race, especially the international community to develop norms to prevent the misuse of this biotechnology, in fact, its progress is far from the speed of development of modern technology. Now it just highlights the fact that the international community is supposed to cooperate, sit down, and have some basic norms that have to be developed.”
Using DNA to suppress Uyghurs
Indeed, over the past few years, the outside world has been wary of China’s aggressive acquisition of genetic data for research to promote medical treatment and drugs, or for biological weapons development, or for stability maintenance. The international community has condemned the Chinese authorities’ use of genetic technology for “evil” purposes, mass surveillance of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, and arbitrary human rights abuses.
On July 20 last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 11 more Chinese companies to its “entity list” for export governance, accusing them of cooperating with the Chinese Communist authorities in human rights abuses, mass arbitrary detentions, forced labor, and forced collection of biometric data on Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, including Xinjiang Silk Road UW Genetics and Beijing Liuhe UW Genetics “assisted in collecting genes from ethnic minority groups” for genetic analysis. UW Genetics has issued a statement denying this.
Human Rights Watch, one of the leading international human rights organizations, released a lengthy report in May 2017, saying that Chinese police have been collecting personal genetic information on residents for years to create a nationwide searchable database of more than 40 million people, including many dissidents, immigrants, and Uyghur Muslims, but that the database lacks oversight, transparency and privacy safeguards.
Reports indicate that Xinjiang authorities, who have ruled with an iron fist in recent years, are intent on accelerating the collection and archiving of DNA. Human Rights Watch said in November 2016 that Xinjiang’s public security authorities require all passport applicants to submit DNA samples in order to be processed. Xinjiang is Home to 10 million Uighur Muslims.
Human Rights Watch: China’s Serious Human Rights Violations in Xinjiang
“In December 2017, Human Rights Watch issued another news release saying that Xinjiang authorities were collecting DNA samples, fingerprints, scans and blood type information from residents between the ages of 12 and 65. The sources said authorities plan to collect biological data from residents in different ways, including DNA and blood type information through a free annual medical checkup program known as “universal medical checkups.
Sophie Richardson, director of Human Rights Watch’s China program, said the practice “is a serious violation of international human rights norms. It is even more disturbing when it is done in secret under the guise of a free health program.” Richardson also criticized Xinjiang authorities for collecting DNA and other biometric data from Muslim minorities, particularly for tracking, updating facial recognition technology, or targeting other Family members.
Ms. Richardson told VOA that the Chinese Communist authorities’ practice of collecting genetic data on Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a clear violation of basic human rights.
In February and December 2019, the New York Times published lengthy investigative reports detailing the use of DNA and other biometric technologies by Chinese Communist authorities in Xinjiang to track Uyghurs and to draw facial images of Uyghurs, she said.
Beijing Human Rights Lawyer Forced to Take Blood Sample
Chen Jiangang, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer who was forced to flee China due to the crackdown on his representation of sensitive cases in the country, told Voice of America that this unimaginable violation of human rights in China, especially in Xinjiang, is outrageous. Chen recounted to reporters his experience of being forced to take blood samples.
He said, “The Communist Party is right above the law and there are no legal barriers. Once, they took more than ten of us lawyers to the police station and had to take blood from us lawyers. When Cheng Hai was suspended from practice for a year, Cheng Hai applied for a notary, and we simply wanted to request to sit in on the meeting, and the police arrested us all. It is not necessary to say that we are completely legal, just assume that we are not legal, then you deal with such an administrative case, why do you have to draw blood from us people? This is, you have to mention the protection of human rights, there is no way to mention it. We are powerless, we are facing a powerful, armed to the teeth very evil group.”
In addition, U.S. investigative network The Intercept reported on Feb. 3 that it had obtained a massive police database that revealed the inside story of authorities’ close surveillance of Uyghurs and other minority Muslims in Xinjiang in Urumqi.
The report also confirmed previous accusations that the Communist authorities have used a variety of methods to monitor and suppress the Uyghurs, including separating children from their Parents, forcing them to undergo “training” in prison-like re-Education camps, installing surveillance cameras in private homes and mosques, establishing mass detention centers, randomly demolishing Uyghur cemeteries by police, and forcing Uyghurs to celebrate holidays. The police have demolished Uyghur cemeteries at will, forced birth control and abortion, and mass collection of electronic and biometric data, among other things.
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