Military research groups connected to China's hypersonics and missile programs are purchasing a range of specialized American technology, The Washington Post reported.
The groups, many on a U.S. export blacklist, are buying products that include items developed by U.S. firms that have received millions of dollars in grants and contracts from the Pentagon to spur cutting-edge innovation, the Post reported.
That creates the appearance that the Defense Department is subsidizing Chinese military advances.
The Post reported more than 300 sales since 2019 of U.S.-origin technology to dozens of entities involved in China’s hypersonics or missile programs.
"It's very disturbing, because the bottom line is that technology that can be used for military hypersonics was funded by U.S. taxpayers, through the U.S. government, and ended up in China," Iain Boyd, director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado, told the Post.
The newspaper reported that Chinese military organizations purchase advanced software products through private firms despite U.S. export controls designed to prevent sales or resales to foreign entities deemed a threat to U.S. national security.
Scientists who work at Chinese military research academies and the companies that aid them told the Post that U.S. technology fills critical gaps in domestic technology and is key to advances in Chinese weaponry.
"In this case the American technology is superior — we can't do certain things without foreign technology," one Chinese scientist told the Post. "There isn't the same technical foundation."
Highly specialized aeronautical engineering software was one example of products the Chinese are acquiring.
Hypersonics refers to a range of emerging technologies that can propel missiles at greater than five times the speed of sound and potentially evade current defenses, the Post said.
In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. and China are in a race to develop hypersonic missiles, with the Chinese seeming to have an advantage in one key area — owning a wind tunnel capable of testing a full-sized hypersonic missile.
The Post discovered the technological purchases by analyzing contract solicitation and award documents issued by the groups, as well as speaking to six Chinese scientists working in military labs and universities.
The scientists described almost unrestricted access to American technology with applications in the design and testing of missiles.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.