Tensions between China and the United States have cooled off a bit, but they’re still present as the Department of Justice has warned automakers that the communist country wants their electric vehicle technology.
At a conference, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the Chinese government is “fighting a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership.” However, he said they’re not doing this with legitimate innovation but rather stealing “their way up the economic ladder at our expense.”
The nation’s top cop went on to say “We see Chinese companies stealing American intellectual property to avoid the hard slog of innovation, and then using it to compete against the very American companies they victimized—in effect, cheating twice over.”
China uses multiple methods to steal American technology, but they can largely be boiled down to cyber intrusions, corporate espionage and theft of research. Wray said this is an enormous problem as he revealed the FBI is currently conducting about 1,000 investigations into China’s attempted theft of US-based technology. He added the investigations involve every single one of their 56 field offices and span “almost every industry and sector.”
Nothing seems off limits as Wray said China has “targeted companies producing everything from proprietary rice and corn seeds to software for wind turbines to high-end medical devices.” He added the country goes after “anything that can give them a competitive advantage” and this includes pricing information, internal strategy documents and personally identifiable information.
Reuters noted Wray’s warning was echoed by the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center who said China’s top priorities are stealing aircraft and electric vehicle technology. The latter shouldn’t be too surprising as China is the world’s largest market for electric vehicles and US automakers are finally getting serious about EVs.
While it can be hard to stop thefts, Wray urged companies to beef up their security, reexamine their supply lines and take the warning into consideration when thinking about doing business with Chinese companies. As the FBI warned, “While a partnership with a Chinese company may seem profitable today, a U.S. company may find themselves losing their intellectual property in the long run.”