The U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has recently addressed national security concerns over the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) development and deployment of biotechnology for use in military applications and human rights abuses.
The BIS amended Export Administration Regulations to add 37 entities in the PRC, Georgia, Malaysia and Turkey to the Entity List for working against the interests of the United States, the final rule published on the Federal Register said. Their inclusion “will impose additional license requirements on, and limit the availability of most license exceptions for, exports, reexports, and transfers.”
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a Dec. 16 Commerce Department press release that pursuing biotechnology for medical innovation “can save lives.”
“Unfortunately, the PRC is choosing to use these technologies to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” Raimondo said in the release. “We cannot allow U.S. commodities, technologies and software that support medical science and biotechnical innovation to be diverted toward uses contrary to U.S. national security.”
Included in the list are entities that divert or attempt to divert U.S. exports to Iran’s military, the release said.
“The U.S. will continue to stand strong against efforts by the PRC and Iran to turn tools that can help humanity prosper into implements that threaten global security and stability,” Raimondo said in the release.
