Chinese genetic firm BGI raises White House ire with Middle East coronavirus tests while US struggles to provide adequate kits
- Shenzhen-based BGI Group built a testing centre in Abu Dhabi in 14 days, capable of tens of thousands of tests a day
- Separately, Israel’s government said BGI would help it carry out 20,000 tests per day
While the US struggled to come up with enough tests to manage the world’s largest coronavirus outbreak, a Chinese genetics company took less than a month to build testing centres thousands of miles away in the Middle East.
By moving swiftly, Shenzhen-based BGI Group won hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with traditional US allies including Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Now the US is warning those countries that they may be giving Beijing access to highly prized personal data that will propel economies of the future.
That argument doesn’t seem to be holding much sway over US allies, as China turns its experience in managing the crisis into a global opportunity. Nor has the US, with a virus death toll nearly triple any other country’s, been able to offer much of an alternative.
“China has seized the moment,” said Jonathan Fulton, assistant professor at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed University and a specialist in China-Gulf relations. “This is happening while the US just seems completely overburdened.”
“For the newly built Covid-19 labs, BGI’s customers, not BGI, will manage patient samples and access patient data,” said Li Ning, vice-president of BGI Group and chief development officer of BGI Genomics. “The labs are operated by the local health authorities or institutions, not by BGI. BGI provides technology transfer. The equipment has no ability to collect personal data.”
As the virus swept into the Gulf, the company helped set up the largest coronavirus detection laboratory outside China in collaboration with G42, an Emirati artificial intelligence and cloud-computing company. Built in 14 days in March, the Abu Dhabi-based Centre can perform tens of thousands of tests a day and uses Chinese-manufactured robots to prepare samples.
BGI won’t have “access to the laboratory data,” G42 said in an emailed statement. “Strict protocols are in place to protect the information security and data privacy against any unauthorised access, both external and internal.”
US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker accused China of using “face-mask diplomacy” to distract from its lack of transparency over the origins of the virus. Declining to comment on specific companies, he said data passing through Chinese entities could be “compromised” and echoed the comparison with Huawei.
“There are states in the region that understand this,” Schenker said by phone. “We are a partner that has provided billions of dollars over the years in investment in the health sector, humanitarian aid in the region, and we’re not leaving.”
China’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the allegations surrounding BGI.
Israel’s AID Genomics unveiled a tie-up with the Chinese company a week after the firm took up its virus role in the UAE. The venture aimed to set up a lab in the Gaza Strip capable of 3,000 tests per day with the backing of Israeli and Palestinian authorities, the companies said. Separately, Israel’s government said BGI would help it carry out 20,000 tests per day.
Israel’s government said it gave serious consideration to information security in the partnership. BGI won’t have access to results or raw data, an official at the country’s health ministry said, asking not to be named. Clalit, a Tel Aviv-based health services provider, declined to comment to Bloomberg on a local media report that it declined to work with BGI over concerns about access to sensitive data.
Saudi Deal
In Saudi Arabia, a phone call between King Salman and Chinese President Xi Jinping led to a US$265 million deal with BGI to supply the kingdom with nine million testing kits, 500 staff and six laboratories capable of handling 50,000 samples a day. BGI said it was also planning an additional lab which would allow 30 per cent of the kingdom’s population to be tested in the next eight months as needed.
The partnership “confirms the strength of long-standing Saudi-Chinese ties,” royal court adviser Abdullah al-Rabeeah said in a statement when the deal was signed.
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan commended China as a “role model” in the fight against the virus. It set “the best example for how these trying times will pass by through collaboration and solidarity,” he said after a call with his Chinese counterpart last month.
In a recent virtual panel, a UAE official and an influential Saudi prince called on the US and China to put aside their differences to fight the virus. Asked to comment on US concerns about BGI, the UAE Foreign Ministry said it welcomes collaboration “with the best companies around the world, especially in light of the current crisis, which requires cooperation across countries and sectors.”
With attacks on China becoming a centrepiece of Trump’s re-election strategy, the Chinese inroads aren’t going unanswered. Last week, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo broke his virus seclusion with a trip abroad to Israel – in part to deliver a warning against deepening ties with Beijing.
