Cotton Warns Against China Trying to Steal
Coronavirus Vaccine from U.S., Urges ‘Hard Look’ at Visas
Granted to Chinese Nationals

From Breitbart


JEFF POOR

26 Apr 2020


Sunday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s 
“Sunday Morning Futures,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said, 
based on the past, the Chinese government was likely 
still attempting to steal intellectual property from the 
United States, including a coronavirus vaccine.

“[T]he Chinese Communist Party has been stealing 
America’s intellectual property for decades, and they 
aren’t going to magically stop in the middle of a pandemic,” 
he said. “In almost every state in the union, there are 
active cases against Chinese nationals. In Arkansas, for 
instance, they are accused of having stolen proprietary 
genomes of our farmers in East Arkansas. But in the middle 
of a pandemic, what’s the most valuable intellectual 
property in the world? It’s the research that our great 
laboratories and life science companies are doing on 
prophylactic drugs, therapeutic drugs, and ultimately a 
vaccine. So I have little doubt that the Chinese intelligence 
services are actively trying to steal America’s intellectual 
property as it relates to the virus that they unleashed on 
the world, because, of course, they want to be the country 
that claims credit for finding those drugs or finding a vaccine, 
and then use it as leverage against the rest of the world.”

Cotton told FNC’s Maria Bartiromo a “very hard look” 
should be taken at Chinese Nationals coming to the 
United States to study in specific fields.

“[I]t’s a scandal to me that we have trained so many of 
the Chinese Communist Party’s brightest minds to go back 
to China to compete for our jobs, to take our business, 
and ultimately to steal our property and design weapons 
and other devices that can be used against the American 
people. So, I think we need to take a very hard look at the 
visas that we give the Chinese nationals to come to the 
United States to study, especially at the post-graduate level 
in advanced scientific and technological fields. If Chinese 
students want to come here and study Shakespeare and the 
Federalist Papers, that’s what they need to learn from America. 
They don’t need to learn quantum computing and 
artificial intelligence from America.”