With the CEOs of four of the world’s most powerful tech companies sitting in front of them, today would have been the perfect time to get answers on their cooperation with the Chinese government. Instead, Congress once again blew the opportunity.
In his opening statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook praised Huawei, an espionage organ of the Chinese Communist Party. Not a single congressman of either party asked Cook about Huawei over the hours and hours of questioning. The members asked almost no questions about China at all.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced about as much time answering questions about China as he did about why campaign emails get sent to spam folders. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked why Twitter censored Donald Trump Jr.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wasn’t asked about his company banning TikTok from employee devices or for an explanation for the immediate walkback of that policy. Zuckerberg wasn’t asked about his campaign to get China to allow Facebook access to its lucrative market back in 2018. Google received only a glancing blow about its abandoned Project Dragonfly that would have created a special, CCP-approved search engine.
It took three hours before all four CEOs were asked about Chinese slave labor by Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado. Apple, in particular, has been tied to the forced labor of Uighur Muslims in China. The issue wasn’t pressed further than Cook declaring forced labor to be “abhorrent.” Buck was one of the rare stars of the hearing, grilling Google on its China ties.
If Google wants to cozy up to Communist China, Mr. Pichai must answer for the atrocities committed by the CCP.
Do they agree with CCP suppression of free speech in Hong Kong?
Or the imprisonment Uighur Muslims?
What about China’s use of slave labor? pic.twitter.com/br1oKOVyR7
— Congressman Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) July 29, 2020
Rep. Matt Gaetz was the only other member to launch a sustained interrogation, pressing Pichai on Google’s direct and indirect cooperation with the Chinese military while having pulled out of a Defense Department contract.
With the CCP’s expanding influence over our technology, particularly with Google and Apple, this should have been the real question of the day. But Congress blew it, as always, because campaign videos and point scoring are more important than the slow creep of an oppressive communist regime into American technology and business.
