US requests more vigilance on Chinese involvement in Israeli tech sector

At an annual meeting on Sino-Israel relations on Thursday, a United States government official said Israel needs to do more to defend its tech industry from Chinese influence.

Speaking at the Sino-Israel Global Network and Academic Leadership’s (SIGNAL) conference, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multilateral Affairs and for Global China Issues Jung H. Pak, warned Israel to defend its “advanced critical technologies.”

The U.S. government has warned Israel about the dangers of Chinese involvement in its infrastructure for years, one of the few areas the former Trump administration and the current Biden administration agree upon.

In a visit to Israel in January 2019, then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton encouraged Israeli officials to be wary of Chinese telecommunications companies ZTE and Huawei, which were interested in selling equipment to Israel that would grow its 5G cellular networks.

Last year, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and then-Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, warning Israel must choose sides between the U.S. and China.

The U.S. government believes that Chinese investment in infrastructure projects represents a serious security threat and has warned allies repeatedly against allowing Chinese companies to have oversight or control over vital infrastructure.