U.S. Must Put a Ban on Google Helping China Develop a Global Digital Dictatorship
U.S. Must Put a Ban on Google Helping China Develop a
Global Digital Dictatorship
Google’s decision to help China is paving the way for
Beijing’s ‘digital dictatorship.’ Ultimately, Washington must make a political
decision to criminalize such collaboration.
Gordon G. Chang 03.26.19 4:13 AM ET
General Joseph Dunford, America’s top military officer,
has announced he will be meeting with Google representatives this week to talk
about the company’s assistance to China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, first
stoked the controversy over Google on March 14 during his appearance before the
Senate Armed Services Committee. “The work that Google is doing in China is
indirectly benefiting the Chinese military,” he said.
“We watch with great concern when industry partners work
in China knowing that there is that indirect benefit,” he added later.
“Frankly, ‘indirect’ maybe not be a full characterization of the way it really
is. It’s more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.”
Google issued a firm denial in response to Dunford’s
comments. "We are not working with the Chinese military,” a spokesperson
said. “We are working with the U.S. government, including the Department of
Defense, in many areas including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare.”
But Dunford is correct. The denial, even if technically
accurate, is nonetheless misleading. Google maintains arrangements that it
either knows or should know directly benefit the Chinese military.
For instance, in December 2017 the company announced the
formation of the Google AI China Center in Beijing.
Due to Chinese ruler Xi Jinping’s announced policy of
“civil-military fusion,” there is no longer any meaningful distinction between
civil and military research, especially in areas like AI that Xi has determined
China must dominate. As Bob Work, once U.S. deputy defense secretary, said of
the new facility in the Chinese capital, “Anything that’s going on in that
center is going to be used by the military.”
Similarly, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan
sounded the alarm at that Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on March 14.
“The fusion of commercial business with military is significant,” he said. “The
technology that is developed in the civil world transfers to the military
world. It’s a direct pipeline. Not only is there a transfer, there’s also
systematic theft of U.S. technology that facilitates even faster development of
emerging technology.”
Dunford, in comments last Thursday, pointed to the
requirement of having Communist Party cells in companies. The cells, he said,
will lead to the transfer of intellectual property to the Chinese military.
The Daily Beast asked Google if its AI China Center hosts
a Communist Party cell but has not received a reply.
Google’s AI center in Beijing is not the only project of
concern. “Google is partnering with several state entities for various projects
to expedite their research,” Bandon Weichert, a national security analyst
specializing in emerging technology, told The Daily Beast.
The company is already participating in AI research at
Tsinghua University, one of China’s two premier institutions, and is
cooperating with Peking University, the other top institution, and the
University of Science and Technology of China.
Google’s work with the University of Science and
Technology of China is perhaps the most sensitive. Weichert, who publishes the
Weichert Report, told radio host John Batchelor in October that Google has
expressed interest in investing in and contributing personnel to a new Chinese
quantum computer center in Anhui province, slated to be operational next year.
The National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences,
a multi-billion-dollar facility taking up 86 acres, will conduct both civilian
and military research and, according to Weichert, has close links with the
People’s Liberation Army. The University of Science and Technology of China is
a participant in the lab’s projects.
Google’s AI efforts in China, Weichert says, will require
the company to expand its cloud computing capabilities in the country—it is
exploring cooperation with China’s Tencent in this area—and it will need
quantum computing. Google will be making substantial contributions to China’s
advancement of these critical technologies.
Of all companies, Google should know that any research
conducted in China will find its ways into the hands of the Communist Party and
the Chinese central government. Theft for Google is not a theoretical concern.
China, after all, stole Google’s source code back in 2010. (The Chinese
government said Google’s claim about an attack by hackers based in China was
“groundless.”)
Google must know that China’s military, which reports to
the Party, will benefit directly from its research.
As Weichert told me, “China has been anticipating this
for a few years and they are making moves to coopt Google research on quantum
as best as they can, just as they did with Western manufacturing firms 20 years
ago.”
“The Chinese,” he said, “are replicating the very same
behavior they used to gut the manufacturing sector from the United States.”
“And they are applying those techniques and capabilities in gutting America’s
high tech sector.” Enticement, theft, and forced transfer are commonplace in
both multi-decade efforts.
As Google moves closer toward work with China’s military,
it is distancing itself from the U.S. military. The company bowed to protests
from thousands of its employees last June, issuing a statement committing
itself not to “design or deploy AI” for "weapons or other technologies
whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate
injury to people."
As a result, Google is walking away from the Pentagon. It
is not renewing the Project Maven contract, an AI project, and it has decided
not to compete for the JEDI cloud computing project.
“By refusing to help the U.S. government to obtain
necessary advantages to defend freedom, Google is only accelerating the day in
which China achieves its goal of a global digital dictatorship,” Richard Fisher
of the Virginia-based International Assessment and Strategy Center told The
Daily Beast.
So Google is helping the Chinese military in applications
that are certainly lethal while not participating in similar American efforts.
The company deserves condemnation for this choice.
As questionable as Google’s decision appears, this matter
is ultimately not a Google issue. Corporate executives are not charged with
defining and implementing national security policy.
This is a U.S. leadership issue. Until the American
political system identifies China as an enemy or merely a foe—something that
should have been done some time ago—Google is free to work for Beijing, however
wrong that cooperation is.
President Donald Trump has mentioned the problem on
Twitter, but what’s required is far more comprehensive than a tweet.
The way to get Google to stop working for China is to
make it illegal to do so. That’s up to 536 individuals who are often found in
Washington, D.C.: President Trump, 100 senators, and 435 members of the House
of Representatives.
Comments
Post a Comment