As reports have emerged that Chinese military-linked firms gather American DNA, these firms are now capable of creating digital replicas of Americans, according to John Mills, former director of cybersecurity policy, strategy, and international affairs at the Department of Defense.
“They have the capacity to create these complex models of each of us. They’re making digital twins of us,” Mills told the “China in Focus” program on NTD News, sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.
Digital Twins
He pointed to BGI Group, formerly Beijing Genomics Institute, which is the leader of the CCP’s genome project, as well as a leading producer of COVID-19 tests.
In 2017, the company’s leader boasted that it had reached an industrial level of success in progressing through genetic reform and gene editing, to gene synthesizing, and mass-producing multiple viruses, bacteria, and large yeasts.
“They can do all kinds of nefarious things with no constraint or loss. They have our data.” That data could be used to tailor a follow-up virus to target certain non-Han ethnicities, Mills warned.
Mills referred to Beijing’s military-civil fusion policy, calling Chinese companies “extensions of state security, state intelligence.”
That includes every Chinese company and every company that is incorporated in China, even if it is American in origin, he stressed. “They are the eyes and the ears and the collectors.”
That means when Americans give information to these companies, their data is essentially going to Chinese intelligence, Mills said.
“So they know about every one of us … I would presume that I have a file in China,” he added.
BGI Targets American Researchers
Mills raised further concerns about BGI’s group’s record of targeting distinguished American researchers.
“They have a long history of targeting some of our best researchers … there is a proven track record that almost immediately veers into national security concerns with China,” he noted.
Read More: China Creates ‘Digital Twin’ of Americans: Cybersecurity Expert
