Senate Passes Bills Targeting Tech Ties with China
This week, the Senate passed two significant bills aimed at reshaping the U.S. technology and security relationship with China, mainly focusing on limiting the flow of research and funding to companies linked to the country.
These new measures are part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—a yearly defense policy bill that allocates $879 billion for the U.S. military. With cross-party support, the Senate approved Senator John Cornyn’s Fighting China Act of 2025 alongside Senator Bill Hagerty’s Biosecurity Act to address perceived security threats posed by China.
Cornyn’s bill, known as the “Guardrails for Foreign Investment in Support of Stopping the China Law in 2025 (FIGHT),” aims to introduce safeguards to prevent U.S. resources from bolstering China’s advanced military initiatives in critical areas like AI, hypersonic weapons, and supercomputing. It received broad bipartisan backing.
“This transparency initiative will shed light on how much money is flowing into the People’s Republic of China and how those investments are potentially aiding our biggest strategic adversary,” Cornyn stated during discussions in the Senate. He highlighted that China’s integration of military and civilian sectors has made the U.S. a leading contributor to key technologies in China, inadvertently strengthening its military capabilities.
The bill empowers federal agencies to block or impose penalties on deals that send American expertise or funding to critical sectors in China, in addition to mandating regular updates to Congress on U.S. investments in high-tech Chinese industries.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, representing Massachusetts, emphasized the importance of developing cutting-edge technologies domestically, saying, “We should ensure that we’re not inadvertently funding advancements in nations that do not align with our values. This bill is essential for safeguarding our national security and ensuring that our innovations don’t contribute to progress in areas that concern us.”
On the other side, Hagerty’s Biosecurity Act aims to restrict federal contracts from involving biotechnology firms deemed risky, citing concerns that they serve as instruments of the Chinese government to gather and analyze personal data on a vast scale. This legislation also gained bipartisan support.
“The BioSecure Act will prevent taxpayer dollars from inadvertently being funneled to companies aligned with the Chinese Communist Party,” Hagerty remarked. “This measure ensures that the federal government doesn’t engage in contracting with firms that pose a threat to American citizens’ genetic data.”
Hagerty’s proposed changes would block the federal government from signing contracts or providing financial support to companies associated with the Chinese military that manage sensitive genetic data.
He cited the Chinese military’s identified focus on biotechnology as a future warfare front, referencing reports from 2017 suggesting the use of targeted genetic attacks against specific ethnic or individual groups as particularly alarming.
The NDAA was passed by the Senate on Thursday, concluding weeks of negotiations around the substantial funding package. This step allows both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to reconcile their respective versions of the bill, even amid a government shutdown.
