By Shauneen Miranda
Carolyn Bartholomew, chairwoman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, addressed concerns over the rising tensions between the United States and China in Stamp on Wednesday.
“China continued to pursue state-directed industrial policy, steal intellectual property and maintain barriers to market access,” said Bartholomew, who also serves as a professional staff member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Bartholomew said that one party rule and suppression of dissent remains a staple of authoritarian governance.
Bartholomew said China’s goals focus on using technology as a central tool of illiberal governance and seeks to export these technologies and the authoritarian model they enable.
“They blocked certain search engines and now they’re working with Facebook to censor certain things that the government doesn’t want people to see, and it’s kind of infringement of freedom of speech,” said Omar Hussain, a freshman computer engineering major.
Bartholomew also addressed the Chinese government’s social controls.
“Some individuals in China are finding that they are unable to purchase airplane tickets, gain employment or obtain housing based on their social credit scores,” she said.
The Chinese government even blocked access to outside websites, a system known as the Great Firewall of China. Bartholomew reasoned that the people of China should have access to the internet where they can freely share information, and added that the free flow of information is “critically important.”
Over one million Uighur people are being held in internment camps, according to Bartholomew. The Uighurs, an ethnic group in the autonomous region of of Xinjiang, experience discrimination as a minority, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
“The repression in Xinjiang is increasingly enabled by a broad array of technology including surveillance cameras, artificial intelligence, biometrics and facial recognition profile,” Bartholomew said.
China’s access to personal data parallels social media use in the U.S.
“Think about what can be learned about you from what you post on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, what games you play, movies you watch, people you follow, your bank account balances, spending patterns and medical records,” Bartholomew said.
Although U.S. citizens put a lot of information online, it’s under the precedent that people do so out of choice, according to freshman computer science major Kaleb Schmucki.
“For citizens of the Chinese government, even if they choose not to put their stuff out there, it’s still being taken advantage of,” Schmucki said.
Huawei, China’s leading technology and telecommunications provider, has close ties to the Chinese government, according to Bartholomew. Chinese law requires companies to help national authorities gather intelligence and prohibits companies from disclosing that they’ve done so.
Bartholomew touched on some of the positive aspects of Chinese technology. “There is an enormous reservoir of talent in China and it would be wonderful if the rest of us felt completely comfortable about these collaborations so that we could advance everybody’s wellbeing,” Bartholomew said.
At the university level, Bartholomew highlighted the importance of developing relationships with colleagues from other countries while maintaining situational awareness.
“I would encourage continuing collaboration, but recognize on the part of Chinese students there is sensitivity about where the information might be going and recognizing on the part of American scientists without being xenophobic that there are sometimes risks that go along with the collaboration,” Bartholomew said.