NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images
- Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants China's army to work more closely with local tech giants.
- Xi ordered the military to focus on collaborations with tech companies to boost China's defenses.
- Chinese tech firms are already facing intense scrutiny in the US over their ties to the CCP.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants China's military to collaborate more closely with local tech giants to boost the country's defenses.
"It is necessary to deepen the collaborative innovation of science and technology, and build, manage, and use national laboratories well," Xi said on Wednesday. He was speaking at a meeting with delegates from the People's Liberation Army and the country's armed police, per state-linked media outlet Renmin Daily.
Xi's statements come as China's two major legislative bodies meet this week to discuss government restructuring and Beijing's plans for the next five years.
In his speech to the army's top brass and police leaders, Xi repeatedly called for an "integrated national strategic system."
"To consolidate and improve the integrated national strategic system and capabilities, the key is to work hard on integration to maximize national strategic capabilities," he said.
Xi's administration has since 2017 been developing its capacity for "military-civil fusion." This is a drive to make China's armed forces the most advanced in the world, by giving it the freedom to work with civilian research and commercial entities.
In a 2020 memo about "military-civil fusion," the US State Department said that one of the Chinese government's chief aims is to develop artificial intelligence for military use. Other key technologies being researched in China include quantum computing, aerospace, big data, 5G, and advanced nuclear technology, the memo said.
The State Department's memo also called the program an "aggressive" national strategy and warned that it "exploited" joint research institutions and private firms to build China's military.
"In a clandestine and non-transparent manner, the CCP is acquiring the intellectual property, key research, and technological advancements of the world's citizens, researchers, scholars, and private industry in order to advance military aims," reads the memo.
Chinese tech companies are already under intense scrutiny in the US
Xi's emphasis on forging closer ties between the Chinese military and civilian tech companies comes amid intense scrutiny from the US government on how Chinese tech giants are using the data they harvest.
Huawei, Hikvision, and Dahua are among the Chinese tech firms blacklisted by the US.
Members of Congress are also pushing to ban TikTok, a popular social media platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, over security concerns.
Xi's comments on Wednesday come at a particularly tense moment in US-China relations.
In February, the Pentagon shot down what it said was a Chinese spy balloon and two other unidentified objects over the US. China called the response an overreaction and said it would take unspecified "countermeasures" against the US.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken later said the US believes China is considering supplying lethal aid to Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. China has refuted Blinken's statements.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Wednesday issued an aggressive warning to the US, speaking of "conflict and confrontation" if the US "does not hit the brake, but continues to speed down the wrong path."
"Such competition is a reckless gamble, with the stakes being the fundamental interests of the two peoples and even the future of humanity," he said.
Xi on Monday also accused the US of trying to suppress China's growth. "Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-round containment, encirclement, and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented grave challenges to our nation's development," he said, per state media outlet Xinhua.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.