Stanford President John Hennessy called for the reform of U.S. export controls, citing several examples in which beneficial research at Stanford was halted due to government security restrictions, in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Friday on campus at the Arrillaga Alumni Center.
The committee chose to meet on the Farm instead of Capitol Hill because of the relevance of the topic to the local high-tech industry. Speaking before them, Hennessy said Cold War era export controls were hurting the nation’s ability to be a leader in science and technology.
Export controls were put in place so that the government could maintain control of the spread of technologies important to national security. But Hennessy pointed out that in many cases, broad export controls were stopping beneficial research, through citizenship requirements and other restrictions.
“Many of the export controls regulations that served the United States well 40 years ago no longer meet the country’s needs. The current system actually impedes our national security and thwarts our ability to compete.”
Hennessy highlighted the experience of a University research team that was asked to collaborate with a U.S.-based Fortune 100 high-technology company. The team was developing a microchip that stimulates the brain, a technology that could be used to treat brain disorders or build autonomous systems. When the University learned that export-controlled technology was central to the project, two Chinese national graduate students would have had to be excluded if work was to continue. For the faculty member and half-dozen graduate students on the University research team, that was a non-starter.
“Stanford does not, nor will it, restrict participation of students based on citizenship,” Hennessy said.
In a heated exchange, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) pressed Hennessy on this point, saying the example he cited was based on a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant, and that involving Chinese nationals in defense research was not an option.
Hennessy responded by saying that if a topic is so core to national defense, then universities are not the correct setting for such research.
Replied Rohrabacher: “I would suggest that universities need to think that they are patriotic Americans, too.” He added by saying that he could see an Adolf Hitler-like threat emerging from China in a decade.
The hearing, which included Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D- Calif.), joined by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Rohrabacher, indicates that Congress is interested in overhauling the law that authorizes the system of licensing and controlling technologies, last seriously revisited in the Carter Administration. The White House is also involved, with President Obama ordering a review of the nation’s export control policy.
Although Rohrabacher downplayed the partisan nature of debate on the topic, a split was on display between the Democratic push for significant export control reform and Republican caution at loosening export controls with non-democratic trading partners.
In a room in the heart of liberal Silicon Valley, sitting alongside three House Democrats, Rohrabacher was clearly outnumbered. Still, he made his views clear, and expressed considerable concern about allowing non-democratic countries to gain access to key technologies.
“I support export control reform, I support streamlining the system, I support removing barriers that hamstring U.S. companies,” he said. “However, this reform needs to respect the fact that there are nations that seek to do harm to our national well-being and economic security.”
Rohrabacher said he favored a two-tiered system that opened trade with allies, while tightly controlling trade with non-democratic countries, such as China, saying that even trade with seemingly innocuous Chinese companies was essentially sending technology straight to the Chinese government.
“We are dealing with a ghoulish regime here that a lot of people are making profit out of,” he said of China.
Friday’s hearing occurred in the shadow of Google’s recent announcement that it may withdraw from the Chinese market. Rohrabacher spoke glowingly of what he saw as Google’s patriotism in making the announcement.
“I sent a letter to the president of Google yesterday commending him as a moral giant, as opposed to moral pygmies at other companies,” he said.
As Congress works to overhaul the statutory framework for export control, the tradeoff between maintaining American global competitiveness and national security, especially in cases of technologies of disputed or unclear strategic value, is becoming increasingly important.
In his testimony, Hennessy made it clear that America’s leadership role in science and technology is under pressure, and that export controls are making it more difficult to maintain a leadership position.
“Today, the Untied States is still the overall leader,” he said. “But in many fields, we are one of the leaders rather than the sole leader, and in a few fields, the United States is clearly not at the top.”
Hennessy, along with several others at the hearing, said the goal of reform should be to continue to safeguard security while removing unnecessarily broad controls that hamper beneficial research.
“Our goal should be to design national security controls without negatively impacting our ability to conduct fundamental research that can benefit the United States economically and militarily.”
In May, Hennessy sat down with The Daily to discuss his activism in the area of export control policy.