US lawmakers call for sanctions on China's WuXi AppTec biotech firm

BGI AD

12/02/2024 19:40

By Michael Martina
       WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. should review
Chinese biotech firm WuXi AppTec and its affiliate WuXi
Biologics for sanctions, a bipartisan group of lawmakers told
top Biden administration officials on Monday. 
    In a letter dated Feb. 12 and seen by Reuters, the lawmakers
told Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that the global
pharmaceutical giant's links to China's Communist Party and
military threatened U.S. national security.
    The letter, signed by the Republican chair and Democratic
ranking member of the House select committee on China,
Representatives Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi, and
Senators Gary Peters and Bill Hagerty, is Congress' latest
effort to highlight what it says are risks posed by China's
biotech leaders.
    Congress has introduced legislation that would restrict
federally-funded medical providers from allowing China's BGI
Group, WuXi AppTec and other biotech firms from getting genetic
information about Americans. 
    WuXi AppTec did not respond immediately to a request for
comment, but has repeatedly said that it is not a national
security risk to any country. 
    "We are concerned by a misguided U.S. legislative initiative
to target our company without a fair and transparent review of
the facts," WuXi AppTec said previously in a statement still on 
its website home page.
    The four lawmakers – citing public Chinese government
documents, Chinese university websites and media articles –
outlined what they called WuXi AppTec's clear military ties, as
well as support for China's policies in Xinjiang, a region where
Washington has accused Beijing of committing genocide against
Muslim minorities.
    They said WuXi AppTec had received investment from numerous
PLA funds, including the AVIC Military-Civil Integration
Selected Hybrid Securities Investment Fund. 
    They also cited a resume for WuXi Biologics CEO Chen
Zhisheng, posted in 2018 to a Tsinghua University website, that
listed him as a visiting professor at China's Academy of
Military Medical Sciences, which was added to the Commerce
Department's export control list in 2021.
    "Given WuXi AppTec's clear ties to the CCP and the PLA and
its likely role in enabling the genocide in Xinjiang, we urge
your departments to consider the inclusion of WuXi AppTec and
its subsidiaries on your respective control lists," they said in
the letter.
    Those should include sanctions under Treasury's Non-SDN
Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List, the Commerce
list restricting U.S. sales to named entities and the Pentagon's
"1260H" list, which carries implicit warnings about U.S.
cooperation with certain firms. 
    "WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics have obscured their ties to
the CCP and PLA and, as a result, are rapidly integrating
themselves into U.S. supply chains by signing agreements with
prominent U.S. biotech entities," the lawmakers wrote. 
    The two companies have counted Pfizer  PFE.N , AstraZeneca
 AZN.L , GlaxoSmithKline  GSK.L , and U.S. national labs as
partners.
    

 (Reporting by Michael Martina, editing by Deepa Babington)
 ((michael.martina@thomsonreuters.com;))