‘These tests allow China to access the genomic data of both mother and fetus from all over the world,’ said UK MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
Communist China is gaining a significant strategic advantage through its application of artificial intelligence (AI) to DNA editing technologies, according to one British lawmaker.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, could wield an unprecedented amount of power over the international community if its influence in AI and genomics isn’t slowed, UK member of Parliament (MP) Sir Iain Duncan Smith said.
“China now has a head start on applying AI to genomics, which poses a significant threat to our collective national security,” Mr. Duncan Smith said during a Nov. 28 talk at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“If China dominates AI and genomics, it will wield unprecedented influence over major industries including, of course, global health care.”
Mr. Duncan Smith urged the need for heightened vigilance and strategic measures following news that the CCP is harvesting DNA from millions of people around the world through the clandestine use of its health care products.
A failure to confront the threat, he suggested, could threaten global security in a way unparalleled since World War II.
“Nothing China does is left to chance,” Mr. Duncan Smith said.
“The threat that we now face is on par to that which we faced during the Cold War and even that which we faced in the 1930s.”
China Harvests DNA From Millions of Women, Fetuses Globally
Mr. Duncan Smith highlighted ongoing investigations across five countries into the CCP’s use of prenatal tests to gather DNA from pregnant women and their fetuses.
The tests, marketed as “NIFTY,” were designed by Chinese genomics giant BGI in consultation with the CCP’s military wing. While the tests purport to screen for Down syndrome and other genetic conditions, collected DNA data is stored on servers in mainland China, where the CCP can access it at any time.
“These tests allow China to access the genomic data of both mother and fetus from all over the world, and we have granted them the rights to use that data back in China,” Mr. Duncan Smith said.
“How astonishingly short-sighted was that?”
BGI has also been implicated in other human rights abuses, including the forced harvesting of DNA from predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region of China. The United States has subsequently blacklisted some units of BGI.
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