Reforming the Flawed Process of Listing Chinese Entities on A Case-By-Case Basis

By Steve Coonen In 2019, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) wisely placed Huawei on the Entity List. This action was necessary for making sure the company could not obtain American components it needs to win the 5G race. But Huawei moved fast to protect its interests, quickly spinning off a company called Honor to maintain the flow of U.S. components required to produce 5G mobile devices. A state-owned company, Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology, subsequently purchased Honor in 2020, demonstrating the important role that the Chinese government plays in directing strategic technologies such as 5G. During my time serving at the Department of Defense (DOD), I personally pushed for the federal government to add Honor… Read More

CTT Releases No Weak Links Paper Offering Solutions for Keeping U.S. Defense Supply Chains Free of Dangerous Chinese Technologies

[Read the full white paper here.] One of America’s greatest security vulnerabilities is the U.S. Government’s lack of knowledge of the exact components that go into the weapons and systems American military personnel depend on. Today many items used by the federal government – e.g. smartphones, batteries, vehicles, and weapons systems – contain components with backdoor surveillance capabilities that retrieve sensitive U.S. Government information, or “kill switches” that could enable a foreign adversary to disable equipment while in use or tamper with the device remotely. With the Chinese Communist Party committed to military superiority over the United States, it’s a realistic scenario that the CCP could exploit these vulnerabilities in both peacetime and wartime. Little has been written on this… Read More