Lawmakers Urge BIS to Return Chinese Science Institute to Entity List
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., called on the Bureau of Industry and Security Aug. 14 to return China’s Institute of Forensic Science to the BIS Entity List, citing the lab’s "continual and well-documented" human rights abuses.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
In a letter to BIS head Jeffrey Kessler, the lawmakers criticized the Biden administration’s 2023 decision to remove the IFS from the list to encourage China to stop producing and exporting fentanyl precursor chemicals (see 2311160003). They said China made “false promises of cooperation” on fentanyl and provided no evidence that the IFS had ended its human rights abuses.
Scott and Moolenaar said the IFS continues to play a “key role” in repressing Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in the Xinjiang region, such as through mass internment, forced labor and high-tech surveillance. Returning it to the Entity List would require BIS to issue a license for most exports of controlled items to the lab, which would ensure that U.S. technology and expertise do not contribute to China’s “machinery of oppression and genocide," the lawmakers wrote.
BIS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
The letter came about three months after Scott and Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., introduced a bill that would relist the IFS (see 2505160038). The legislation remains pending before the Senate Banking Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.