Microsoft Needs to Untangle Itself from Beijing

A new report has been released highlighting Microsoft’s close relationship with the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The report from Horizon Advisory comes after a bevy of reporting and news items have revealed the depth of Microsoft’s Chinese integration. The most notable of these was a series of ProPublica pieces that revealed that Microsoft had failed to tell the Pentagon that it had let China-based engineers “work on highly sensitive department systems.”

These reports come on the heels of other reports, articles, and books that have shed light on how closely entangled most American tech companies are with the PRC. Apple was the target of Patrick McGee’s “Apple in China,” which highlighted how Apple has pumped hundreds of billions of dollars—not to mention technical know-how—into China’s economy. And chip manufacturer Nvidia’s need for Chinese customers was made readily apparent by their fervent opposition to the Guaranteeing Access and Innovation for National Artificial Intelligence Act (GAIN AI Act), which would have forced them to sell to American companies first.

But Microsoft’s collaboration, as per the report, is deeper than was previously publicly known. The company’s“partnerships, joint ventures, and broader web of partners” have worked to aid the PRC’s police state, both in surveilling its people and in artificial intelligence (AI) development. Microsoft’s granting of “visibility” into the inner workings of its technologies has even aided Chinese hacking into American governmental agencies and operations.

Read more at The National Interest.