Lawmaker Pushing for Rebuttable Presumption of Human Rights Abuses for Certain Tech Exports to China

Congress should establish a rebuttable presumption that certain technology exports sold to China will be used to violate human rights, said Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J. Malinowski, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he pushed to include that language in a previous House version of the Ensuring American Global Leadership and Engagement (EAGLE) Act but the wording “kept on getting stripped by the Senate” for “mysterious” reasons. “There is a very strong behind-the-scenes lobby against that from whatever elements of corporate America continue to profit from that trade,” Malinowski said in a Capitol hallway interview July 27, specifically pointing to facial recognition technology.

“I would very much like to have, in effect, a rebuttable presumption that certain types of technology being sold to Chinese government entities [and] state enterprises are going to be used to commit human rights violations,” Malinowski said. “That’s another debate that we’re continuing to have that will result in legislation. I'm just not exactly sure when it will be.” The Foreign Affairs Committee passed the latest version of the EAGLE Act earlier this month, which calls for some modernization of U.S. export controls and more restrictions on munitions exports to Hong Kong police.