As recently as this past February, Cue Group’s website featured a video and posting that described a Cue unmanned vehicle “… suitable for public security, fire protection, military, engineering and other fields.”[1] The video and posting were removed from Cue’s website following inclusion of the vehicle in an article published by The Wire China on February 20, 2022.
The video imbedded here and images from it were captured on February 20, 2022 while viewing it on Cue’s website, before to Cue removed it.[2]
What, if anything, is Cue hiding from U.S. investors?
Chinese surveillance and military defense companies are attracting scrutiny from the U.S. government. Could that be a reason to remove these postings?
On June 3, 2021, President Biden ordered investment restrictions regarding publicly-traded securities of certain entities that “operate or have operated in the defense and related materiel sector or the surveillance technology sector of the economy of the PRC”.[3] The executive order does not restrict investments in private equity or non-traded securities, nor is Cue Group named in the list of companies in the Biden Executive Order.
This Spring, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the America Competes Act which includes a number of provisions relevant to Chinese surveillance companies and U.S. outbound investment into China.[4] As of April 27, 2022, the bill is in conference committee with the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness Act, which contains similar provisions to some, but not all, of those in the House bill.
The Wire China in February 2022 quotes an expert on U.S. legislation like this: “’There is a lot of momentum behind it,’ says Martijn Rasser, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and former analyst at the CIA, where he focused on foreign emerging technologies. Cue Group ‘could become a poster child for exactly why this legislation is of interest in the White House and Congress.’”[5]
KKR and Cue recently denied that Cue had jointly developed surveillance technology for a different product – the Cue AI Facial & Body Temperature Detector – with a lab run by an arm of the Ministry of Public Security, even though the government lab confirmed to The Wire China that it had previously collaborated with Cue.[6] That collaboration had been promoted on Cue’s website, and then Cue removed reference to it after February 20, 2022, too. See The Cue Cover-Up.
Cue’s posting captured 1/19/2022 from Cue’s website, translated by Google:
“Recently, Kaiyu Group’s digital technology business line released the latest scientific research results: a new generation of CUE intelligent detection of unmanned vehicles. The product is independently developed and integrates a variety of artificial intelligence technologies, and is suitable for public security, fire protection, military, engineering and other fields. Kaiyu Group has always attached importance to scientific and technological innovation, and continued to increase investment in scientific research. The appearance of the product prototype is the latest achievement of Kaiyu Group’s continuous investment in the field of digital technology, demonstrating Kaiyu Group’s hard-core scientific and technological strength.”
[1] Google translation of posting at https://cue.group/#/newsdetails?id=2021_013 . Posting was removed after The Wire China published “The Surveillance Stake” on 2/20/22.
[2] https://cue.group/#/newsdetails?id=2021_013
[3] Federal Register /Vol. 86, No. 107 /Monday, June 7, 2021 / Presidential Documents 30145. Executive Order 14032 of June 3, 2021, “Addressing the Threat From Securities Investments That Finance Certain Companies of the People’s Republic of China”
[4] HR 4521 America Competes Act https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4521/text
[5] https://www.thewirechina.com/2022/02/20/the-surveillance-stake/ 2/20/2022
[6] https://www.thewirechina.com/2022/02/20/the-surveillance-stake/ 2/20/2022