THE REUTERS – President Joe Biden proposed Alan Estevez, a former Pentagon officer, to be the United States Commerce Department’s undersecretary for industry and security, a significant position in the US-China technology rivalry. The position of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the Commerce Department, which was originally inconspicuous, has acquired prominence in recent years as Washington has increased its use of export controls to prevent China from gaining U.S. technology.
The bureau prohibited U.S. sales to Huawei Technologies, which is based in China, under the Trump administration. This hampered the world’s largest telecoms equipment manufacturer and gave BIS a key position in efforts to restrict Chinese telecommunications infrastructure corporations due to national security concerns. Estevez worked for the Department of Defense for 36 years and is now a Deloitte Consulting executive. He served on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which assesses investments for national security, during the Obama administration. Eric Hirschhorn, the Obama administration’s undersecretary for industry and security, described him as “a really strong guy.” Estevez does not have a long public record on China export issues, which might help him gain Senate confirmation in a state where China hawks have attacked prior Biden selections.
The Commerce Department’s spokeswoman declined to comment, and Estevez did not respond to demands for comment right away.
According to his Deloitte biography, Estevez’s Defense Department experience included serving as principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, and he was involved in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Hurricane Sandy relief.
Huawei was included to the Commerce Department’s “entity list,” a trade blacklist supervised by BIS, in 2019. Under Trump, dozens of other Chinese companies were added, including video surveillance giants Hikvision and Dahua Technology. More Chinese corporations have been put to the blacklist by the Biden administration in recent weeks due to alleged human rights violations and high-tech surveillance in Xinjiang.
Without difficult-to-get licenses, US suppliers are prohibited from selling to companies on the list.
Many people considered Kevin Wolf, who served as an assistant secretary of Commerce during the Obama administration and championed the blacklisting of Huawei’s smaller Chinese rival ZTE Corp, to be the best qualified candidate for the undersecretary position.
However, China hawks chastised Wolf last year because, after leaving government, he worked as a trade lawyer, advising U.S. semiconductor and other high-tech firms on obtaining licenses to export to Chinese firms like Huwawei.
William Reinsch, another former Commerce undersecretary, said, “The White House should be humiliated for not going with Kevin Wolf.” “This guy is fine, but we all know Kevin is the best candidate for the job.” (Karen Freifeld contributed reporting; Andrew Heavens, Steve Orlofsky, Chris Sanders, and David Gregorio edited the piece.)/n
