US congressional negotiators are mulling whether to look again at NASA projects given to Elon Musk's SpaceX due to the financial support that China provides Musk's automaker Tesla, the Washington Examiner reported.
“What is there to stop them from going to Musk directly and saying, 'We'll call your line of credit early, unless you give us X, Y, or Z?'” said a Republican aide involved in the negotiations over legislation that governs the space agency.
“And, there's no real clarity that there's any kind of mechanism that would stop that other than good behavior by an individual".
Republican Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, who is on the Commerce Committee, told the Washington Examiner he is "concerned" that companies in China could come into the US and make a "sweetheart deal, take sensitive information, take proprietary technologies, and use it to enrich their own space program".
Gardner, who also chairs the Foreign Relations subcommittee for East Asia, offered two amendments: the first being a Government Accountability Office review of NASA contractors for potential ties to China, while the second would force NASA leaders to “take into account” ties when reviewing contracts.
“The level of concern I'm hearing from companies who are in the U.S. and are concerned about this is alarming”, he said.
The amendments are designed to prevent US firms currently working with NASA being “leveraged” by the Chinese government through “significant financial assistance” from Beijing.
This move doesn't encompass just aerospace companies with direct ties to China but also “United States companies that share ownership with NASA contractors”.
Congressional aides insist that the legislation isn’t designed to solely restrict Musk’s companies, claiming that there are "at least seven aerospace companies that have some element of Chinese investment that would raise red flags, like Tencent,” a Senate Republican aide said.
Gardner’s team acknowledged receiving input from United Launch Alliance (ULA) - a Space X competitor - which has been pushing for the bill which would see Musk's company put at a disadvantage after they secured credit worth approximately $1.4 billion from Chinese state-owned banks in December.
“That's just responsible vetting”, a Gardner aide said.
“But to say this is a rubber stamp of something ULA gave us and it’s a ULA-Space X [fight reveals] a lack of recognition of what the real issue is".
Musk himself used national security concerns to dissuade Senate appropriators from reliance on ULA after Crimea voted to return to Russia in 2014, by claiming that the firm uses Russian rockets.
Negotiators have attempted to compromise, proposing a self-certification arrangement where companies confirm that no Chinese entity is even a minority owner in the company.
Gardner’s team, however, wants to restrict involvement in NASA contracts for one year as well as give NASA the authority to maintain the ban for up to 10 years.
Senator Maria Cantwell, the Commerce Committee’s top Democrat, has prioritised a reliance on existing law to punish deception in cases where NASA already has the the power to respond as it sees fit.
The move comes as part of an overarching pivot by Washington to exclude Chinese involvement in the US economy on the basis that the ruling Communist Party of China is spying on US citizens and harvesting data, allegations that Beijing vehemently denies.
