Thermo Fisher’s necessary, but insufficient, decision to halt genetic ID tech to China
Hong Kong Free Press, 26 February 2019
By Sophie Richardson, China Director – Thermo Fisher Scientific, a large US-based medical technology manufacturer, announced this week it would stop selling human identification technology in China’s Xinjiang region. After more than a year of unanswered questions from Human Rights Watch, members of the US Congress, and others – culminating in a damning New York Times exposé of its sales in Xinjiang – Thermo Fisher chalked the decision up to “fact-specific assessments.”
Xinjiang, in northwestern China, has been synonymous with gross human rights violations for decades. Since late 2016, the Chinese government has accelerated abuses under its “Strike Hard” Campaign, which entails mass arbitrary detention of Turkic Muslim minorities, Orwellian surveillance, and harsh restrictions on cultural, religious, and linguistic rights.
Thermo Fisher’s decision leaves many key questions unanswered: What about sales of that technology to Chinese police in other parts of the country? The police’s abusive collection of DNA materials from people unconnected to crimes is not confined to Xinjiang. What about other companies’ technology that has been misused? Will the numerous other companies that may – wittingly or not – be enabling China’s surveillance state rethink their business? And what will Thermo Fisher do to prevent these types of sales from happening again?