Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Magnequench: CFIUS and China's Thirst for U.S. Defense Technology

One of Senator Hillary Clinton's Asia policy advisers quit her presidential campaign several days ago, complaining that the candidate was engaging in "gratuitous China bashing." And, in fact, the Senator has of late been engaged in a jeremiad on China.
To be sure, a good portion of the sourness nurtured in the Democratic Party's base against China is undeserved, and more about big-labor politics than genuine security concerns, yet Senator Clinton has spotlighted at least two grave vulnerabilities in America's defense industrial base: Chinese state-controlled investments in key U.S. defense suppliers and the impact on defense supplies caused by seemingly unrelated environmental litigation that closed down the world's second-largest rare-earths mine and thereby gave China a monopoly on oxide ores that are absolutely essential to all defense electronics. More...

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