Chinese Tech Expert Reportedly Viewed as Candidate for BIS Role
Among the potential candidates to head the Bureau of Industry and Security is James Mulvenon, a Chinese technology expert at the aerospace company SOS International, the Wall Street Journal reported Feb. 11. Mulvenon is expected to be considered for the undersecretary role along with Kevin Wolf (see 2102090060), an export controls lawyer and a former BIS official, and could bring a more hard-line stance on U.S. technology exports to China, the report said.
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The Biden administration is undergoing a governmentwide review of U.S. policies toward China, including sanctions and export controls (see 2102080046 and 2101250049). Although BIS has been working since 2018 to control emerging and foundational technologies and officials have expressed a preference for multilateral controls over those technologies -- a goal that is expected to be reinforced under the Biden administration -- much of BIS’s control policies will be determined by Biden's choice to lead the agency.
Mulvenon has been a vocal advocate for export restrictions against China, even when that may disadvantage U.S. companies. He has warned the Biden administration against “simply implement[ing] what industry would prefer” and urged Commerce to “carefully restrict critical technology” from Beijing. “What’s good for Silicon Valley or Wall Street’s quarterly numbers is no longer necessarily what is good for America’s long-term technological or industrial interests,” Mulvenon wrote in a Jan. 28 commentary for War On the Rocks, a foreign policy blog. But he also said the new administration must “strike a delicate balance” between pursuing aggressive restrictions and supporting its own innovation base. “The Commerce Department will be critical to this effort, promoting U.S. opportunities in overseas markets while also protecting American technology from illegal export and theft,” he wrote.
He also said BIS should do more to place “the interests of the United States, its long-term economic vitality, and its people ahead of the near-term financial interests of” multinational technology companies, expand its view of export controls to achieve more than just counter-proliferation goals, “exercise” U.S. leadership at multilateral control bodies outside the Wassenaar Arrangement and sustain pressure against Huawei. BIS declined to comment, and the White House didn’t comment. Mulvenon couldn’t be reached.