Senators Introduce Bill to Boost US Production of Semiconductors Amid Beijing’s Threats

In a move to counter China’s tech ambitions, a bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation aimed to boost the United States’ production and development of semiconductors—tiny chips that power everything from smartphones to missiles systems. “With the Chinese Communist Party’s continued efforts to dominate the rest of the world’s microelectronics industries through theft and coercion, it is critical that we work swiftly to strengthen domestic production of semiconductors and maintain our strategic competitive edge,” Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) said in a June 26 statement from his office. The legislation was introduced by Risch, as well as Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Angus King (I-Maine), and Doug Jones (D-Ala.). The lawmakers seek to include the measure as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 (S.4049). The bill, named the “American Foundries Act of 2020,” would authorize the U.S. Commerce Department to award $15 billion in grants to states to assist in “construction, expansion, or modernization” of semiconductor plants and facilities. States would be limited to receiving no more than $3 billion in grants. It would also allocate $5 billion for the U.S. Department of Defense to provide grants for private sector entities to create, expand, or modernize their manufacturing or research facilities capable of producing “secure and specialized” chips for defense and intelligence purposes.

Additional funds of $5 billion would go to research and development of semiconductors to ensure “U.S. leadership” in the industry. Of that total, $2 billion would be earmarked for the expansion of the Electronics Resurgence Initiative of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is a Pentagon agency responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. An additional $1.5 billion would go to the National Science Foundation, $1.25 billion to the Department of Energy, and $250 million to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. None of the funds appropriated under the bill may be provided to entities “under the foreign ownership, control, or influence” of the Chinese regime or other foreign adversaries, according to the bill text. It also stipulates that the U.S. president will establish a subcommittee under the National Science and Technology Council for efforts such as “strengthening the domestic microelectronics workplaces” and “guiding and coordinating funding for breakthroughs in next-generation microelectronics research and technology.” “America’s technological advantage played a decisive role in our victory in the Cold War, and it will be equally important to our ability to outcompete China over the coming decades,” Hawley said in the statement.

U.S. trade body Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) welcomed the proposal in a statement on June 25. “The U.S. simply cannot afford to cede more ground to competing countries in the production of semiconductor technology, which is the bedrock of our country’s digital economy and defense systems,” said John Neuffer, SIA’s CEO and president. SIA, in a policy report issued on June 18, said the United States currently enjoys a great lead over China in terms of market dominance and technical advancements, despite the latter’s attempts to boost its semiconductor industry through state-backed policies. According to the SIA report, the U.S. semiconductor industry had a market share of 47 percent in 2019, followed by South Korea with 19 percent, and China with 5 percent.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/senators-introduce-new-bill-to-boost-us-production-of-semiconductors_3405360.html

US Ramps Up Unprecedented Effort to Counter China

The United States is responding to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “unrestricted warfare” strategy by ratcheting up its war of words and escalating its countermeasures—a more hard-hitting approach to a threat that previous administrations failed to fully recognize, according to experts. Top U.S. officials, as well as politicians from both sides of the political aisle, have expressed concern about China’s increasingly aggressive and hostile stance toward the United States. FBI Director Christopher Wray said recently that no country presents such a danger to America’s innovation, economic security, and democratic ideas than the Chinese regime. National security adviser Robert O’Brien, meanwhile, recently said the United States will no longer be passive in dealing with China. Aside from the rhetoric, U.S. counteractions have also ramped up. Wray told Fox News that the bureau currently has more than 2,000 active investigations that trace back to the CCP, marking a roughly 1,300 percent increase in economic espionage probes with links to the Chinese regime. He said the bureau opens “a new counterintelligence investigation that ties back to China every 10 hours.”

Nicholas Eftimiades, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and author of the book “Chinese Intelligence Operations,” said the recent public proclamations from both the administration and members of Congress “reflect a frustration with China’s aggressive theft of U.S. innovation and technology.” “The U.S. sees China’s large scale economic espionage and covert influence activities as supporting economic predatory practices and military expansion in the South and East China Seas,” Eftimiades told The Epoch Times. “The Chinese communist government has never been friends with the U.S.,” he said. “It is only now some American politicians are realizing it.” Since 2018 the U.S. administration’s efforts to abate China’s espionage, commercial espionage, and intellectual property theft has been increasing, according to Eftimiades. If the United States backs up its current rhetoric with actions, allies will also move more aggressively to counter China, thereby increasing global pressure on the CCP and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to comply with the established global rule of law, he said. Previous administrations and members of Congress believed China would liberalize as it gained wealth. Eftimiades called the story of U.S.-China relations “a very sad tale of American arrogance, ignorance, political greed, and corruption.” “Chinese and American companies were happy to donate and offer business opportunities to U.S. politicians who shared those beliefs,” he said. “The result was a massive expansion of China’s military, trillions lost in U.S. intellectual property, a threat to the world rule of law, and rich American companies and politicians.” “Only now, when China’s ‘unrestricted warfare’ approach is impacting the world, are U.S. politicians finally taking note,” he added.

In February, the FBI was already conducting roughly 1,000 investigations into China’s attempted theft of trade secrets, just one of many fronts in the communist regime’s wide-ranging campaign against the United States. Every FBI field office at the time was working on trade-secret theft cases involving China, with potential victims spanning almost every sector and industry. According to a review of DOJ press releases, the department has brought more indictments related to Chinese infiltration since 2019 than during the entire eight years of the Obama administration. John R. Mills, former director of Cybersecurity Policy, Strategy, and International Affairs at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said the uptick in FBI probes is significant and is due to a “massive reprioritization” of the bureau’s assets and resources. “The way FBI, law enforcement, and national security investigations work is they just have to be told what the priority is and they will pivot and reprioritize,” Mills told The Epoch Times. “That’s what your seeing, a massive reprioritization of FBI activities here … it has a huge effect.”

While the bureau has increased its efforts, some say it won’t be enough to fully deal with the CCP threat until a national strategy and an all-of-society approach is utilized. “The FBI is attempting to meet an impossible challenge,” Eftimiades said. “There are thousands of PRC intelligence officers operating in the U.S. The FBI cannot mitigate China’s clandestine collection activities.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-escalates-unprecedented-effort-to-counter-china_3405554.html