A group led by U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Mike Lee (R-UT) is urging the U.S. Department of Energy to prohibit Chinese foreign nationals from working in American national laboratories.
Cotton, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Lee, the chair of the energy and National Resources Committee, were joined by U.S. Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Jim Risch (R-ID), James Lankford (R-OK), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Todd Young (R-IN), Jim Justice (R-WV), Dave McCormick (R-PA), and Ted Budd (R-NC) in writing a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright asking for the labs to ban Chinese nationals from the labs. The lawmakers said having them in national labs could jeopardize American innovations in artificial intelligence.
“Genesis Mission was launched to help the U.S. win the race with China for AI supremacy by harnessing untapped prowess in this space at our national laboratories. Continuing to give access to the cutting-edge work performed at these laboratories to Chinese nationals who will turn everything they know over to the CCP directly undermines the purpose of Genesis Mission,” the senators wrote. “Therefore, we respectfully recommend that you mitigate threats to Genesis Mission by promulgating a policy prohibiting the national laboratories from granting Chinese nationals access to any national laboratory site, information, or technology.”
According to the letter, more than 3,200 Chinese nationals were approved for access to national laboratory sites, information or technologies. That number, they said, did not include Chinese nationals with lawful permanent resident status, likely meaning hundreds more were working in labs. The Senators said proper vetting of the individuals prior to giving them access was not a sufficient safeguard.
“First, the sheer number of Chinese nationals coming to the labs outpaces the capacity of the Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence to vet them. Second, efforts to vet will likely fail to yield affiliations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because of China’s efforts to obfuscate them,” the senators wrote. “Lastly, scientists and researchers who might not directly work for the Chinese government can be compelled in one way or another by the regime to turn over what they have learned during their time at a national laboratory.”
The letter said the best way to protect Genesis Mission was to “put an end to Chinese national scientists and researchers” work at national laboratories.