A bipartisan group of lawmakers want Google to cut ties with a Chinese telecommunications company regarded by U.S. officials as an espionage threat.
“Chinese telecommunications companies, such as Huawei, have extensive ties with the Chinese Communist Party,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote in a letter signed by three other colleagues. “As a result, this partnership between Google and Huawei could pose a serious risk to U.S. national security and American consumers.”
Rubio and Cotton have maintained a steady drumbeat of concern about Chinese intelligence taking advantage of the access to the U.S. afforded to China’s tech companies. Those alarm bells are part of a broader perception of a technological race between the rising Communist power and the U.S. But it was also tinged with frustration about Google’s recent cancellation of a Pentagon research project.
“While we regret that Google did not want to continue a long and fruitful tradition of collaboration between the military and technology companies, we are even more disappointed that Google apparently is more willing to support the Chinese Communist Party than the U.S. military,” they wrote in a tart rebuke of Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Cotton and Rubio both serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee, in addition to their respective posts on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations panels. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, also signed the letter. So did Texas Rep. Mike Conaway, a senior Republican on the House Intelligence panel. Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, who oversees foreign policy issues from the Appropriations panel, was the lone Democrat to sign on.
“We urge you to reconsider Google’s partnership with Huawei, particularly since your company recently refused to renew a key research partnership, Project Maven, with the Department of Defense,” they wrote. “This project uses artificial intelligence to improve the accuracy of U.S. military targeting, not least to reduce civilian casualties.”
Google decided not to renew the artificial intelligence project following internal opposition from the tech company’s employees. “Many of the company’s top A.I. researchers, in particular, worried that the contract was the first step toward using the nascent technology in advanced weapons,” the New York Times reported on June 1.
World leaders expect artificial intelligence to provide a critical national security edge in the years to come. “The one who becomes the leader in this sphere will be the ruler of the world,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said last year.
Google’s decision to kill the program came six months after the U.S. and Chinese tech giants announced a “strategic partnership” with Huawei to “integrat[e] Google’s Android Messages across HUAWEI’s Android smartphone portfolio.” Taken together, the moves appear to have ensured congressional scrutiny.
“We look forward to your response, including the rationale for your decision to partner with Huawei but not the U.S. military, as well as your plans to mitigate the grave risks of working with Huawei,” they wrote.
