What does national security have to do with the Lenovo-Motorola deal?

Lenovo's planned acquisition of Motorola's mobile phone business will likely be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), the government agency that makes sure foreign investments don't impact national security. Though the deal will inevitably be heavily scrutinized, few experts expect the agency to scuttle it. That doesn't, however, mean Lenovo's deal will be rubber stamped.

When Lenovo bought IBM's PC division in 2005, members of Congress openly fretted that the Chinese company would use its new asset to spy on American rivals – and the US government. One concern: IBM was (and still is) a major supplier of computers to the government. "Why would the US government be reliant on a Chinese company whose major shareholder is the Chinese government?" Rep. Don Manzullo told The Wall Street Journal. "That in itself sends a chill up and down the spines of members of Congress."
Similar issues have been raised over Lenovo's plans to buy part of IBM's server division. However, as with IBM's ThinkPads before them, the company's x86 servers are already being made in China. "If you worry about penetration via your low-end server, you're going to have to figure out a way to monitor all servers, not just say kick the Chinese company out and we'll be safe," says Professor Theodore Moran, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
SOURCE: Engadget