The US has accused China of using ‘brain-control’ weaponry to control opponents, having put China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 affiliated research institutes on an export blacklist.
In a public notice America’s Commerce Department announced it had sanctioned the institutes for allegedly using 'biotechnology' to support the Chinese armed forces including 'purported brain-control weaponry'.
This means that the Academy of Military Sciences and its affiliates are now the ‘entity list’, which prohibits US firms from exporting technology that originated in America to the Chinese institutions, or transferring goods to them without a license.
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The notice said: “The ERC determined to add the Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) in China and eleven of its research institutes (the Institute of Health Service and Medical Information; the Institute of Radiation and Radiation Medicine; the Institute of Basic Medicine; the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine; the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology; the Institute of Toxicology and Pharmacology; the Institute of Medical Equipment; the Institute of Bioengineering; the Field Blood Transfusion Institute; the Institute of Disease Control and Prevention; and the Military Veterinary Research Institute) to the Entity List under the destination of China based on the body of information that AMMS and its eleven research institutes use biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end uses and end users, to include purported brain-control weaponry.”
While the Commerce Department did not go into detail about the supposed weapons as it sanctioned the research institutes in a memo last week, 2019 documents obtained and translated by the Washington Times provide a bit more information.
According to the US news outlet, the documents say that, instead of ‘destroying bodies’, China should focus on ‘paralyzing and controlling the opponent’ by ‘attacking the enemy’s will to resist’.
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Speaking to the Financial Times, one official said the technology China is attempting to develop includes 'gene editing, human performance enhancement [and] brain machine interfaces.'
Gina Raimondo, US Commerce Secretary, said there are concerns China could use such weaponry in maintaining control over its own citizens, such as ethnic minority Uighur Muslims.
A statement from Raimondo said: “The scientific pursuit of biotechnology and medical innovation can save lives.
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“Unfortunately, the PRC is choosing to use these technologies to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups. We cannot allow U.S. commodities, technologies, and software that support medical science and biotechnical innovation to be diverted toward uses contrary to U.S. national security.
“The U.S. will continue to stand strong against efforts by the PRC and Iran to turn tools that can help humanity prosper into implements that threaten global security and stability.”
Featured Image Credit: AlamyTopics: US News, World News, China