S.Amdt. 585

SA 585. Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina submitted an amendment intended
to be proposed by him to the bill S. 2226, to authorize appropriations
for fiscal year 2024 for military activities of the Department of
Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the
Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for
such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on
the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place in subtitle D of title XII, insert
the following:

SEC. ___. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON THE EXPIRATION OF THE UNITED
STATES-CHINA AGREEMENT ON COOPERATION IN
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.

(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) In 1979, the United States and the People's Republic of
China signed the Agreement Between the Government of the
United States of America and the Government of the People's
Republic of China on Cooperation in Science and Technology,
signed at Washington (referred to in this section as the
``Agreement'').
(2) The purpose of the Agreement is to promote greater
collaboration on civilian research in the fields of
agriculture, energy, space, health, environment, earth
sciences, engineering, and other such areas of science and
technology.
(3) In line with a drive to achieve self-sufficiency across
a variety of sectors for national security purposes,
including agriculture, health, and environmental
technologies, the Communist Party of China has sponsored or
allowed widespread predatory economic practices, such as
intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer,
in all such sectors.
(4) Such predatory economic practices lead to significant
costs for United States businesses and the innovation
ecosystem of the United States.
(5) In 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated
that the cost of theft of trade secrets, counterfeit goods,
and pirated software could be as much as $600,000,000 per
year.
(6) Intellectual property theft and forced technology
transfer severely undermine the value of the Agreement and
hurting the national security and economic interests of the
United States.
(7) The Communist Party of China actively practices a
policy of military-civil fusion, which was first documented
as a guiding principle for the Communist Party of China in
2007.
(8) According to the Department of State, the goal of
military-civil fusion is to ``eliminate barriers between
China's civilian research and commercial sectors, and its
military and defense industrial sectors... to develop the
People's Liberation Army into a world class military by
2049''.
(9) The Agreement has been renewed several times and is set
to expire on August 27, 2023, unless the President takes
action to renew it.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) due to the standing policy of military-civilian fusion
of the Communist Party of China and the history of
anticompetitive economic practices of the People's Republic
of China, collaborative research conducted under the
Agreement could be used--
(A) to support the modernization of the People's Liberation
Army; and
(B) through the theft of technology, trade secrets, and
other economic information, to exploit economic advantages of
the United States; and
(2) allowing the Agreement to expire on August 27, 2023, is
a step toward protecting intellectual property and
strengthening the national security of the United States.
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