- US sanctioned Chinese research institutes for ‘purported brain-control weapons’
- Official said technology includes ‘gene editing, human performance enhancement [and] brain machine interfaces’
- Chinese documents talked about weapons to ‘paralyze and control opponents’
- US fears weapons will be used against Uighurs as well as military opponents
China is developing brain control weapons that could be used to paralyze and control opponents instead of killing them, the US has alleged.
America has sanctioned China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 affiliated research institutes for using ‘biotechnology’ to support the armed forces including ‘purported brain-control weaponry’.
The Commerce Department, which blacklisted the Chinese institutes, did not go into detail about the weapons – but a separate tranche of military documents penned in 2019 gives hints at what Beijing is trying to achieve.
Instead of ‘destroying bodies’, China should focus on ‘paralyzing and controlling the opponent’ by ‘attacking the enemy’s will to resist’, the report says.