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Ear­ly last March, the state of Wash­ing­ton was the site of the first major coro­n­avirus out­break in the U.S. As the need for COVID tests spiked, BGI Group, the world’s largest biotech firm – a glob­al giant based in Chi­na – approached the state of Wash­ing­ton with an entic­ing offer. 

In a strik­ing­ly per­son­al let­ter to the gov­er­nor, BGI pro­posed to build and help run state-of-the-art COVID test­ing labs. BGI would “pro­vide tech­ni­cal exper­tise,” pro­vide “high through­put sequencers” and even “make addi­tion­al donations.”

It seemed like an offer the state couldn’t refuse, espe­cial­ly giv­en the need. But offi­cials were sus­pi­cious about BGI and its con­nec­tions to the Chi­nese government.

Bill Evan­i­na, a for­mer coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence offi­cial in the U.S., called the lab’s offers a mod­ern-day Tro­jan horse.