Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., has asked the Smithsonian Institution to provide more information about its bird genetics research partnership with China-based Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), saying he’s concerned about BGI’s ties to its country’s military and what he calls its aggressive data collection activities.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week unveiled a new set of changes to its voluntary self-disclosure policies that it hopes will allow compliance professionals to spend more time and money preventing serious export violations and less resources on reporting minor ones. The agency also said it has seen a sharp uptick in self-disclosures of serious violations over the last year and has been getting more tips from businesses about possible violations committed by their competitors.
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Members of the U.K. Parliament this week questioned whether the government should be imposing more restrictions on China, including through human rights sanctions on Hong Kong officials and export restrictions on a broader range of Chinese technology companies. They also urged the U.K. to share the results of a possible review of its arms export policies toward Israel, which at least one member said hasn’t been transparent.
The U.S. shouldn’t rush to impose new export controls on sensitive lidar technology, experts said, mostly because American firms may not have chokepoints over lidar and the restrictions may hurt U.S. export revenue.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the House Select Committee on China, has urged the Commerce Department to consider placing the United Arab Emirates-based artificial intelligence firm Group 42 Holdings (G42) on the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List, citing possible export control risks from the company’s work with China’s military, intelligence services and state-owned companies.
The Commerce Department’s export enforcement actions in 2023 resulted in the “highest number ever” of convictions, temporary denial orders and post-conviction denial orders, the Bureau of Industry and Security wrote in a year-end review. It also said it worked with foreign governments to complete over 1,500 end-use checks, “our most ever in a single year,” and added more than 465 parties from China, Iran, Russia and elsewhere to the Entity List.