to the changing economic and technological landscape.”” Specifically, the initiative aimed

128 to the changing economic and technological landscape.”” Specifically, the initiative aimed to “build higher fences” around a core set of items whose misuse can pose a national security threat to the United States.** The reform initiative is synchronizing the two existing control lists, the Munitions List and the Commerce Control List, so that they are “tiered” to distinguish the types of items that should be subject to stricter or more permissive levels of control for different destinations, end uses, and end users; create a “bright line” between the two current control lists to clarify which list an item is controlled on, and reduce government and industry uncertainty about whether particular items are subject to the control of the State Department or the Commerce Department; and are structurally aligned so that they potentially can be combined into a single list of controlled items.** Moreover, the lists will be transformed into a “positive list” that describes controlled items using objective criteria (e.g., technical parameters such as horsepower or microns) rather than broad, open-ended, subjective, generic, or design intent-based criteria.* After applying these criteria, the list will be divided into three tiers based on their military importance and availability.*° On the one hand, these reforms could greatly improve the efficiency of the export control bureaucracy, preventing fewer technologies from slipping between the cracks and finding their way to China. They could also make the system and its control lists better able to keep pace with technological change, which had been a major problem with the old system, particularly with regard to fast-moving information technologies. On the other hand, the reforms appear to loosen controls over dual-use technologies, which China has a long and successful track record of integrating into advanced systems, and which can form the core of new innovations. The future of these reforms is unclear as the Trump administration appears to focus on more aggressive trade strategies and policies designed to protect US industries and punish offending Chinese companies. Strong investment reviews The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is an interagency committee that serves the president in overseeing the national security implications of foreign investment in the economy.*’ As China’s economy and financial weight has grown, CFIUS has reviewed an increasing number of proposed acquisitions of American companies and infrastructure by Chinese entities. Many of these proposed mergers have received high levels of media and congressional attention, and most of the high-profile cases have ended in rejection or strong discouragement leading to abandonment of the deal. While the CFIUS process may have prevented individual cases of sensitive or illegal technology transfer, it could also have had the unintended effect of forcing Chinese actors to steal the data through espionage because of their inability to buy them. Recent legislation, signed by Technology and Research HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020587