So, here’s a fairly common-sense law we have here in the United States that’s supposed to prevent us from empowering and arming our enemies: American products can’t be sold to China if there is reason to believe that product will be used to develop a missile.
Totally makes sense, right? Here come the loopholes…
According to a report from The Daily Mail, American firms funded by the Pentagon —and by extension, the American taxpayer —are selling technology to the Chinese that can be used in the development of deadly hypersonic missiles; they just use middlemen.
An analysis done by The Washington Post uncovered more than 300 sales over the last three years from U.S. companies to dozens of entities involved in China’s hypersonic missile programs —and nearly 50 firms facilitated the process.
“It’s very disturbing, because the bottom line is that technology that can be used for military hypersonics was funded by U.S. taxpayers, through the U.S. government, and ended up in China,” said Iain Boyd, director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado at Boulder, speaking to The Post.
Darn right, it’s disturbing —we’re arming our biggest enemy. Just last year, Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson issued a dire warning about the U.S. military and our preparedness in the face of Chinese threats.
“We’re not as advanced as the Chinese or the Russians in terms of hypersonic programs,” Thompson said. The U.S. has a lot of “catching up to do very quickly” because “the Chinese have had an incredibly aggressive program for…years.”
Thompson’s concerns were echoed by Air Force Gen. John Hyten: “During the past five years, the U.S. has conducted nine hypersonic tests, while China has launched hundreds, Hyten told The Wall Street Journal.
And it’s not a good look that last year Pentagon scientists were surprised by the advanced nature of China’s hypersonic missiles.
According to the Financial Times, “Pentagon scientists were caught off guard by the advance, which allowed the hypersonic glide vehicle, a maneuverable spacecraft that can carry a nuclear warhead, to fire a separate missile mid-flight in the atmosphere over the South China Sea, according to people familiar with the intelligence.”
How could they have been caught off guard? We’re helping China make them!
