Chinese Seek to Buy a US Maker of Disk Drives

The US must confront and reconcile several realities: China has massive reserves of cash and actively pursues foreign investment; second, debt burdens the US government and its citizens, slowing their investment pace; and third, neither government trusts the other with sensitive industries. Reports that a Chinese firm has expressed interest in purchasing Seagate Technology, a US maker of disk drives, renews debate about what types of foreign investment might threaten national security. The US does not list computer disk drives as a controlled export. “In recent years, modern disk drives, used to store vast quantities of digital information securely, have become complex computing systems, complete with hundreds of thousands of lines of software that are used to ensure the integrity of data and to offer data encryption,” explains John Markoff for the New York Times. On one hand, intelligence officials warn about the possibility of tampering or theft; on the other, US technology firms must compete against heavily subsidized firms in Europe and Asia, and expect fair-market prices for their endeavors. – YaleGlobal