Republican US Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska is cosponsoring a bipartisan bill to curb investment in communist China. The Foreign Investment Guardrails to Help Thwart China Act or (FIGHT) would require Americans to notify the Treasury Department when they make certain investments in key Chinese tech industries like artificial intelligence.
The concern is that technology developed in the United States and transferred to China is being used to harm Americans. For example, a Chinese company installed intelligence gathering equipment on cranes used at seaports across the US that could allow Beijing to spy on Americans and cripple key infrastructure, according to a 2024 congressional report. Much of that technology used for spying originated in the US.
“Our country’s investments in innovative technology give us an enormous advantage over the Chinese Communist Party,” said Sullivan. “But this advantage is threatened when American financial institutions invest in CCP-controlled companies that develop technology—like advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and hypersonics—that could ultimately be used to kill Americans at home and Marines in the Taiwan Strait.”
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is the primary sponsor of the bill. Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will serve as the minority Democratic lead sponsor. Cornyn’s dozen other allies in the effort include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and both parties’ leaders on the Banking Committee: Chair Tim Scott, R-SC, and ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
The FIGHT China Act would cover the following investments:
Acquisitions, including of limited partners, equity interest, property, or other assets; loans and debt financing; Joint ventures; And equity interest or debt conversions.
The new Senate proposal would also empower the Treasury secretary to block a longer list of related investments and to sanction some Chinese firms that partner with the government in Beijing. That provision would effectively leave further curbs or sanctions up to the White House, a shift that comes after business leaders quietly raised concerns with Congress’ initially more binding language.
The bill has some history in Alaska’s experience with China. In 2017, when Gov. Bill Walker was in office, he began deep negotiations with the Chinese to finance and build the Alaska LNG pipeline. The MOU he signed included loans from the Bank of China, construction management from Sinopec, and investment from the China Investment Corporation, all connected to the communist government, with no guardrails to protect the infrastructure from later being sabotaged by China. It’s one example of how technology transfer to China could be weaponized against Americans.
This is referred to as “Steal and Scale,” by those who understand how China steals technology. Steal and Scale is “Steal and Scale” is the sister of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is investing in more than 150 countries around the world and allow China to control them. Belt and Road and Steal and Scale are the centerpieces of Chairman Xi Jinping’s economic and foreign policy, which is to stretch China’s influence through economic dominance. As of August, 2022, 149 counties were listed as having signed on the dotted line for the Belt and Road Initiative.
“The need to address capital flowing from the US to bad actor nations was first realized during the first Trump administration, and I look forward to finishing what we started then by getting this vital priority over the finish line,” Cornyn said in a statement that could very well apply to the Walker sellout of the gasline to the Chinese, something that was ended by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2018.
Republican President Donald Trump, who was supportive of the Walker-China project in 2017, has made it clear he plans on getting tough with China during his second term and will likely support the Sullivan-backed legislation.
The president has already doubled tariffs on Chinese imports, sparking retaliatory restrictions in a no-holds-barred trade war that has banks, farmers, retailers, and even GOP policymakers nervous.
The Senate is moving ahead on this legislation without waiting for the House version. Some analysts believe this could signal House members may take a different approach to disclosing investments in Communist China. In the end though, it’s Trump’s desires on the issue that will probably win out.
“The threat China poses to the United States’ national and economic security continues to grow, and we have a generational opportunity to confront it with the FIGHT China Act,” said Cornyn. “By prohibiting and requiring notification of US investments in certain technologies in China, this bill would help ensure American ingenuity, innovation, and investment do not end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party to be weaponized against us. The need to address capital flowing from the U.S. to bad actor nations was first realized during the first Trump administration, and I look forward to finishing what we started then by getting this vital priority over the finish line.”
Insiders describe “The Foreign Investment Guardrails to Help Thwart China Act” a much less stringent version than the one the House working group first drafted last year — so it’s highly unlikely that multinational firms put up the same fight against it.
Dan Fagan reports and writes columns for Must Read Alaska. He’s covered Alaska politics for close to 30-years. He currently hosts a morning drive radio talk show on 1020 am 92.5 and 104.5 fm on KVNT. For news tips, email Dan at [email protected]
D bill is and was a tool.
Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC), Kawerak and the Villages of Solomon illegally received mining core samples data files, AutoCAD model files and design/process specification data records that belonged to a mining competitor (100% of their competitor’s Intellectual Property) of a US owned suction dredge placer mining Project from Tiffany Kwakwa (former Project Mgr) of the US Army Corp of Engineers BSNC is suspected of using a line of credit, Native only financial entities LOAN360.org et al and using these funds to make contributions to the campaigns of Dunleavy, Sullivan, Peltola and Murkowski to block ANDR permit issuances to their competitor while acquiring sufficient funding from the USAID originated funds under the guise of Climate Change and Carbon Capture. The combination of ADNR delays of permit issuance and seed funding to a CCP controlled company to build and deliver identical suction dredge systems to BSNC, Kawarek and VoS – allowing them to steal the mining yield of their competitors. Does this legislation preclude these entities from achieving their goals?
If this bill is beneficial to the US…….why are Democrats supporting it ?
I much prefer the photo of the former, disgraced, Governor Bill Walker bowing to his Chinese master. A reminder of how close Alaska actually came to being owned by the Communist Chinese. BTW, what ever happened to old Bill Walker? Did he ever come out of hiding?