CFIUS

If one defines technology as anything that extends human capability, it takes only a short logical leap to conclude that nearly any advantage in technological capability over a competitor entails potential military advantage over that competitor.

Late last month, I wrote about the draft proposal from the Trump administration to nationalize the American 5G network as a way of protecting it against foreign influence. Though I was skeptical of the methods chosen, I was more appreciative of the assessment of the problem:

Should Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOE) be free to take control of U.S. companies or companies that otherwise affect the United States’s national security interests? That’s one of the questions tackled in November by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), and one that is regularly faced by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).