GE-AVIC Anxiety

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) today sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressing support for a national security review of the recently announced joint venture between General Electric and the Chinese firm AVIC. Wolf's letter follows one sent by House Armed Services Committee member Randy Forbes (R-VA).

Both Wolf and Forbes want a Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review of the venture in addition to a national security review.

Wolf calls the joint venture “troubling for a number of reasons.”

“The GE-AVIC joint venture could provide the Chinese with years, if not decades, worth of U.S. avionics technology and will fuel their aeronautics capabilities, potentially at great expense to our national and economic security,” Wolf writes.

Forbes’ Oct. 17 letter to Panetta says the General Electric-AVIC team aims to develop an Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) hardware and software system for jets to be manufactured in the United States, which would compete with American defense contractors.

“Given its military origin, I am deeply concerned, once in the PRC, it will wind up aiding the military aviation programs of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), which is even now at work developing its J-20 fifth generation fighter that appears to be intended to threaten U.S. air supremacy in East Asia,” Forbes wrote.