From his perch on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, at the end of last week, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., brought out a bill to protect American technology from China and other nations.
Rubio and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who also sits on the Select Committee on Intelligence, unveiled a bill to “combat tech-specific threats to national security posed by foreign actors like China and ensure U.S. technological supremacy by improving interagency coordination across the U.S. government” by creating “an Office of Critical Technologies & Security at the White House responsible for coordinating across agencies and developing a long-term, whole-of-government strategy to protect against state-sponsored technology theft and risks to critical supply chains.”
On Friday, Rubio explained why he introduced the legislation.
“China continues to conduct a coordinated assault on U.S. intellectual property, U.S. businesses, and our government networks and information with the full backing of the Chinese Communist Party,” Rubio said. “The United States needs a more coordinated approach to directly counter this critical threat and ensure we better protect U.S. technology. We must continue to do everything possible to prevent foreign theft of our technology, and interference in our networks and critical infrastructure. By establishing the Office of Critical Technologies and Security, this bill will help protect the United States by streamlining efforts across the government. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the administration to enact this legislation and guard against these national security threats.”
“It is clear that China is determined to use every tool in its arsenal to surpass the United States technologically and dominate us economically. We need a whole-of-government technology strategy to protect U.S. competitiveness in emerging and dual-use technologies and address the Chinese threat by combating technology transfer from the United States,” said Warner. “We look forward to working with the executive branch and others to coordinate and respond to this threat.”
In recent weeks, Rubio has increasingly focused on tech companies connected with the Chinese regime which have been accused of stealing American technology.
