>> it would be like putting a device in your brain that would launch a missile. reporter: sounds like a sci-fi thriller, new intelligence showing china is using technologies like gene editing and brain machine interfaces to enhance military capability and control its own people, machines that could allow a chinese commando to discharge a weapon with just a thought, not a trigger finger. >> that's what they mean by brain control technology. reporter: this month the biden administration targeted the emerging threat by levying sanctions on 37 chinese biotechnology companies that have ties to this research that experts say includes a so-called mind control weapons. former genre-- dean ron radcliffe warns against trying to keep up with china's unscrupulous efforts. >> we are not going to place our own soldiers at risk, which is what the intelligence tells us the chinese are