[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEFENDING AMERICA FROM THE
CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY'S
POLITICAL WARFARE, PART III
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 24, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-131
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
56-887 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida
------
Mark Marin, Staff Director
Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Margaret Harker, Deputy Chief Counsel
Kelsey Donohue, Counsel
Abby Salter, Counsel
Alexander Craner, Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 24, 2024............................... 1
WITNESSES
----------
Dr. Bradley A. Thayer, Founding Member, Committee on the Present
Danger: China
Oral Statement................................................... 6
Dr. Robert D. Atkinson, President, Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation
Oral Statement................................................... 8
The Honorable Joseph Cella, Former U.S. Ambassador to Fiji,
Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu; Principal, Pontifex Group
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Mr. Jacob Stokes (Minority Witness), Senior Fellow for the Indo-
Pacific Security Program, Center for a New American Security
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses
are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository
at: docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
* Article, House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist
Party, ``CCP on the Quad: How American Taxpayers and
Universities Fund the CCP's Advanced Military and Technological
Research''; submitted by Rep. Higgins.
* Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* Article, Daily Caller, ``Alleged Chinese Spy Spent Years
Rubbing Elbows with Dem Congresswoman''; submitted by Rep.
Biggs.
* Article, BBC.com, ``Biden Has Called Japan and India
Xenophobic''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
* Article, Breitbart, ``Bombshell Indictment Top NY Dem Aide
Worked as Agent of China''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, Daily Caller, ``DoJ Charges Alleged Chinese Agent
with Spying in U.S.''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, The Federalist, ``Firebrand Leftist Raskin Said
Congress Must Disqualify Trump''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, The Federalist, ``Indictment of Gov. Hochul's Aide
Shows Red China is No. 1 Threat''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, Politico, ``Trump Calls China's Leader a Killer'';
submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Biggs, Breitbart, ``FBI Finds Chinese State Hacker Malware on
U.S. Infrastructure-Related Routers''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, New York Times, ``A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda
Leads to U.S. Tech Mogul''; submitted by Reps. Biggs and
Burlison.
* Article, Fox Business, ``Biden Calls Xi a Smart, Smart Guy'';
submitted by Rep. Mace.
* Article, Fox Business, ``Biden Praises Xi Holds
Accountable''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Article, Salon, ``In Resurfaced Speech Trump Endorses Project
2025''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Article, Associated Press, ``NY Gov Aide FBI Efforts'';
submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Article, CNN, ``Trump Does Not Know Who Is Behind Project
2025''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Article, Washington Post, ``Walz's decades of China
experience are an asset, not a liability''; submitted by Rep.
Raskin.
* Article, Washington Post, ``Walz has a long history with
China. But he's not `pro-China';'' submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Biden-Harris Admin October 2022 National Security Strategy;
submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Letter, September 9, 2024, from the White House to Chairman
Comer; submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Statement, from group of 741 national security leaders for
Harris; submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Questions for the Record: to Dr. Atkinson; submitted by Rep.
Foxx.
The documents listed are available at: docs.house.gov.
DEFENDING AMERICA FROM
THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY'S
POLITICAL WARFARE, PART III
----------
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Comer
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Comer, Gosar, Foxx, Grothman,
Cloud, Palmer, Higgins, Sessions, Biggs, Mace, Fallon, Perry,
Timmons, Burchett, McClain, Langworthy, Burlison, Raskin,
Norton, Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Khanna, Brown, Stansbury,
Garcia, Lee, Crockett, Goldman, and Moskowitz.
Chairman Comer. The hearing of the Committee on Oversight
and Accountability will come to order. I want to welcome
everyone here today.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
This hearing is the third in the Oversight Committee's
investigation into the Federal Government's response to the
Chinese Communist Party's use of a strategy known as political
warfare. The CCP employs a strategy to infiltrate and influence
communities and critical sectors across the Nation. The CCP's
ultimate goal is to weaken and destroy its main enemy, which
the party has identified as America. The Committee has
conducted oversight of 25 sectors of the Federal Government to
understand if a whole-of-government approach to the CCP threat
is sufficient or even in existence. Consulting with experts
from the U.S. Government, military, and private sector, and
holding briefings with 23 Federal agencies, the Committee has
found that the CCP is waging a war without weapons against
America, and the Biden-Harris Administration has no
governmentwide strategy to combat CCP warfare.
By any reasonable analysis, the United States faces a new
cold war, but right now, only its opponent, the CCP, is
committed to winning it. Unlike the first cold war, the
adversary is already within, having entrenched itself within
U.S. borders, institutions, businesses, universities, and
culture centers by capturing the elites in influential circles.
Without a cohesive government strategy, the agencies the
Committee has surveyed have been left to formulate their own
solutions, which are diverse and largely ineffective. Simply
put, too many Federal agencies have failed to understand,
acknowledge, and combat CCP's political warfare. Sometimes this
is because the agencies themselves have succumbed to CCP
influence operations seeking to reshape U.S. decision-making to
the Party's benefit.
It is essential that Federal agencies understand what the
CCP is: a totalitarian force that enslaves its own people,
surveils and harasses critics of the Party and people of
Chinese descent around the world, and poisons tens of thousands
of Americans every year with fentanyl. Under General Xi
Jinping, this regime is waging unrestricted warfare against our
country. Congress alerted Federal agencies of this threat 25
years ago. Yet in 2024, the CCP's tactics still pose
extraordinary danger to the American way of life, while the
U.S. Government and its agencies, departments, and commissions
have not engaged the CCP threat with urgency.
In the Committee's previous hearings in this investigation,
it is notable that both Republican and Democrat witnesses who
have testified have recognized CCP political warfare as a
serious threat to American society. Today, our witnesses will
testify about what Federal agencies should be doing to change
course and secure America from the CCP and its destructive
global ambitions. The stakes are high and Federal officials
must start listening to the message the witnesses here today
have to deliver.
The Federal Government has great responsibilities to
confront Communist China. First, Federal leaders must be
willing to talk about the CCP and the warfare it is waging
against America. Transparent communication is critical to an
effective deterrence strategy. Next, the strategy must be
governmentwide. The CCP is targeting every corner of this
country, and all Federal agencies have duties to fight back
against it. Federal officials should reject mixed messaging and
appeasement. That means Federal agencies must put an end to so-
called country-neutral approaches doomed to fail the American
people. Instead, officials should employ targeted strategies to
identify, counter, and deter the CCP's unique methods and
strategies, such as the United Front and elite capture.
Additionally, the intelligence community should not hide
behind the classification system. This investigation has made
clear that there is plenty of open-source information available
demonstrating CCP infiltration operations. It is inexcusable
for Federal officials to neglect their responsibilities to
openly communicate about threats to the public. Also, Federal
leaders must resist influence within their own ranks. The CCP
actively wages psychological warfare to influence decision-
making and how officials carry out their responsibilities. For
example, Federal agencies should reject the lie that it is
racist to criticize the CCP. America's adversary is the Chinese
Communist Party, not the Chinese people, who are victims
themselves of this regime.
Finally, in the face of the cold war the CCP is waging,
Federal agencies should fulfill their responsibilities to the
American people. Federal officials should use their platforms
and authorities to equip America to strengthen their
communities and create the new technologies that will secure a
strong future for the Nation. Today, Federal agencies are ill
prepared to face the CCP threat. A governmentwide strategy is
decades overdue. The American people deserve better from their
government, and I hope that Federal officials will listen to
the constructive recommendations offered today.
I thank the witnesses for being here today, and I look
forward to their testimony. I now yield to Ranking Member
Raskin for his opening remarks.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All the dictators and
despots of the world have something in common in 2024. They are
united in trying to subvert democracy in America, and they are
engaged indeed in political warfare against us, as the title of
this hearing has it. The vicious autocrats of Russia, the
police-state theocrats of Iran, the totalitarian communist
billionaire bureaucrats of China and North Korea, and all their
corrupt oligarchs and plutocrats seek to destroy the very idea
of human rights and political freedom that are the defining
ideals of America and still the hope of a world struggling
against their oppression. The tyrants have something else in
common: Donald Trump. He loves them all and they love him back.
He loves them because he envies their total control over their
societies, and they love him because they know they can
manipulate and control him. He praises all of them: Putin,
Orban, Xi, Kim Jong Un. Trump exults in their friendship and
emulates their control over what he calls ``their people.''
When he was President, Trump said that he and Xi, the
President of China and Chairman of the Communist Party, ``love
each other,'' and Trump called Xi a brilliant man. He openly
envied and marveled over Xi's total control over his people,
saying, ``He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.''
And when people asked questions about Xi and the CCP's role at
the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Trump repeatedly defended
Xi and praised his excellent leadership, calling him a
``brilliant man,'' ``smart,'' ``brilliant,'' ``everything
perfect,'' ``we love each other,'' ``President Xi, who is a
friend of mine, who is very smart,'' ``a very good man,''
``nobody like that,'' ``the look, the brain, the whole thing,''
``My feeling toward you is an incredibly warm one,'' he said.
Trump has repeatedly praised Russia's lawless and bloody
invasion of Ukraine as smart. At a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser in
2022, he gushed that Putin was taking over a country, a vast,
vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and
just walking right in. At the Presidential debate earlier this
month, he refused to say that he wanted Ukraine to win the war
but said he would end the war in 24 hours, meaning he would,
per usual, cave in to Putin's propaganda and outrageous demands
and cede large parts of Ukraine to the Russian strongman who
imprisons, poisons, and murders his political opponents.
Trump's Chief of Staff, John Kelly, described his own boss as
``a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators, a
person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic
institutions, our constitution, and the rule of law.'' And to
quote Trump's chilling 2018 comments to Fox News about Kim Jong
Un, Trump said, ``He is the head of a country, and I mean he is
the strong head. Don't let anyone think anything different. He
speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to
do the same.''
Trump openly catered to Putin, defended the former KGB
chief, and aggressively took his side against the NSA, the CIA,
the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, and more than a dozen
other U.S. intelligence agencies which found that Putin was
engaged in active political espionage, sabotage, and
interference in the 2016 American Presidential election, a form
of shocking appeasement that just invited further Russian
aggression against us in 2020 and now again in the 2024
campaign. H.R. McMaster, Trump's former national security
advisor, recounted a meeting between Chinese President Xi and
Donald Trump. According to McMaster, Xi ``ate our lunch''
because Trump madly ingratiated himself to Xi and completely
failed to stand up for U.S. foreign policy interests. McMaster
writes that Trump frequently revealed his affinity for
strongmen and belief that he alone could form a good
relationship with Putin. As President, according to his own
national security advisor, John Bolton, Trump encouraged Xi's
building and use of concentration camps to hold Uyghurs in
Xinjiang province.
In the 2024 campaign, Trump has promised to follow the lead
of these dictators in the global axis of autocrats. A convicted
felon and an adjudicated sexual assailant, Trump repeatedly
says he would suspend the rule of law in our country, override
the Constitution as dictator on day one, launch the biggest
mass detention and internment of immigrants in American
history, and replace tens of thousands of professional civil
servants with political loyalists and the personal sycophants
he craves. He has pledged to use the Department of Justice as a
weapon to investigate and prosecute his political enemies.
And he is not kidding. He packed and stacked the Supreme
Court to destroy a fundamental constitutional freedom women
enjoyed for more than a half century in America. He personally
ordered the weaponization of the Department of Justice and the
IRS against Hillary Clinton; his own FBI Director, James Comey;
his own Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe; his private lawyer
for years, Michael Cohen, who was put in solitary confinement
for 2 weeks when he refused to promise he would not write a
book about Donald Trump, and was released by a United States
Federal District judge who was shocked by the blatantly
vindictive and unconstitutional persecution of an American
citizen for exercising his First Amendment rights.
Putin, Xi, Trump, and Hungary's tyrant, Viktor Orban, who
had a slumber party at Mar-a-Lago when he was in town promoting
illiberal democracy, which means mob rule without freedom,
these are the new axis of autocrats attacking American
democracy and freedom and human rights all over the world. This
is the real political warfare taking place against America.
After repeatedly caving in to China and cheerleading its
destruction of human rights, after making sure his own daughter
received more than 40 trademarks from China and the CCP, after
praising Xi's great performance on COVID-19, Trump decided it
might be to his political advantage to attack China with some
juvenile racist slurs and nicknames. Scandalously, he has
lumped Chinese Americans and immigrants in with the atrocities
of the CCP when it is the Chinese diaspora in the U.S. that is
actually most at risk for transnational repression and
brutalization by the CCP.
Trump's laughable decision to pose as a critic of Chinese
Government oppression now resembles nothing so much as Orwell's
depiction in ``1984'' of a friendly shifting competition
between authoritarian powers--Oceania, East Asia, and Eurasia--
who pretend to be rivals but actually form an axis of
oppression against their own peoples, who they seek to
dominate.
Now, contrary to this craven submission to foreign
dictators and make-believe, the Biden-Harris Administration and
Democrats in Congress have taken a strong stand for democracy
and against all the autocrats and totalitarians, including the
CCP, responding aggressively to the economic, security, and
ideological challenges posed by China, including by investing
in our competitiveness, our innovation, and our democracy.
Under President Biden, the U.S. has aligned its efforts with
those of our allies and partners around the globe, bringing
together the democracies of the world. President Biden
strengthened military partnerships with allies across the Indo-
Pacific and established the Australia, United Kingdom, United
States, or AUKUS, security pact to help defend peace,
democracy, and stability in the region.
Today, the Democrats will explain how the Biden-Harris
Administration has guaranteed that America can compete with and
indeed outcompete China economically as well as geopolitically
while we stand up for the ideals of human rights and democracy
for all. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Ranking Member yields back. I am
pleased to introduce our witnesses today. All witnesses are
testifying in their personal capacities.
First, we have Dr. Bradley Thayer. He is a founding member
of the Committee on the Present Danger: China. Formerly, he was
a special governmental employee in the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security, where he contributed to the January 2021
report, ``DHS Strategic Action Plan to Combat the Threat Posed
by the People's Republic of China.'' Dr. Thayer's research
focuses on the existential threat the Chinese Communist Party
poses to the United States. Dr Thayer is testifying in his
personal capacity. Next, we have Robert Atkinson. He is the
founder and President of the Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation. A policy expert, Mr. Atkinson has been
appointed by Republicans and Democrats to serve on various
commissions and advise on issues, including competitiveness,
innovation, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and
competition with China.
Next, the Honorable Joseph Cella is the founder and
Principal of the Pontifex Group, a consulting firm. Previously,
Ambassador Cella served as the U.S. Ambassador to Fiji from
2019 to 2021. He is the co-founder and director of the citizen-
led Michigan China Economic Security and Review Group, which
monitors and counters threats of subnational incursions from
the CCP to protect the security of the state of Michigan.
Ambassador Cella is testifying in his personal capacity. And
finally, Jacob Stokes is a senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific
Security Program at The Center for a New American Strategy
[sic], focusing on U.S.-China relations, Chinese foreign and
military policy, East Asian security affairs, and great power
competition. Previously, Mr. Stokes served as a Senior Advisor
to the National Security Advisor, as well as Acting Special
Advisor for Asia Policy for then Vice President Biden. He also
worked as a professional staff member for the U.S.-China
Economic and Security Review Commission.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please
stand and raise their right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Chairman Comer. Let the record show that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative. Thank you all, and you may take a
seat. We certainly appreciate you being here today and look
very forward to your testimony on this very important subject.
Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written
statement, and it will appear in full in the hearing record.
Please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes. As a reminder,
please press the button on the microphone in front of you so
that it is on and the Members can hear you. When you begin to
speak, the light in front of you will turn green. After 4
minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the red light comes
on, your 5 minutes is expired, and we please ask that you wrap
it up as quick as you can.
I now recognize Dr. Thayer for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DR. BRADLEY THAYER
FOUNDING MEMBER
COMMITTEE ON THE PRESENT DANGER: CHINA
Dr. Thayer. Chair Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, and
distinguished Members of this Committee, good morning, and
thank you for the honor and privilege of permitting me to
testify today in my personal capacity.
The current cold war with the Chinese Communist Party is
multifaceted and fought thus far, short of kinetic war, but in
all other domains, including the economic, diplomatic, and
political. Given the focus of this Committee and topic of this
hearing, it is important to understand the similarities between
this cold war and the one fought with the Soviet Union. The
most salient is that the motivation for aggression remains the
same--communist ideology of the Soviet Union in the past and of
the CCP today.
The impact of the ideology of communism and its role in
driving the PRC's aggression is essential for this Committee to
comprehend. Communism is a Western ideology imported into China
and is not part of Chinese civilization, political culture, or
political history, but its effect on China has been profound
and created a swath of destruction through that country. It has
intentionally destroyed the pillars of Chinese culture,
society, and civilization, and killed scores of millions of
Chinese.
Understanding the CCP's ideology provides Congress and
Federal departments and agencies three major insights into the
PRC's behavior. First, it allows them to comprehend why the PRC
is inherently aggressive. Communism seeks to force societies
like China's into an ideological procrustean bed defined by
Marxism/Leninism. In addition, communism requires aggression,
including unrestricted warfare against non-communist states.
The effect on U.S. national security interests could not be
more significant as this explains the CCP's aggression against
the U.S. In the CCP's worldview, the U.S. is the fundamental
enemy to be destroyed. The second insight is, the CCP is a
product of Soviet imperialism. The Soviets and the Communist
International played a dominant role in organizing,
instructing, and, in almost every sense that matters, de facto
leading the CCP. The role of Soviet communist thought is
essential for comprehending the actions of the CCP, and it
provided the foundation for what is known as Maoism, or more
recently, Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese
characteristics for a new era.
The third insight is that the CCP is illegitimate. It is so
for three reasons, first, precisely because they were formed
and nurtured by the Communist International, and the CCP
seizure of power in 1949 was made possible by Stalin and the
Red Army. Second, they seek to sustain the tyranny of the
failed ideology of communism on the Chinese people, when this
ideology should be thought of for what it is: an illegitimate
polity for China and the last surviving form of Western
colonialism. The CCP cannot hide the fact that it is a product
of Soviet imperialism. Third, the CCP is illegitimate because
of its abhorrent leadership, which has accelerated under the
misrule of General Secretary Xi Jinping. Seventy years of the
CCP's tyranny have led to the recognition by the Chinese people
that the odious, corrupt, and illegitimate regime rules for
itself, not for the Chinese people.
I offer in my written testimony eight detailed
recommendations for Congress. Here, I only mention their
unifying theme, that is, given their august past, the Chinese
people naturally possess a profound sense of pride in their
civilization and its great accomplishments. They rightfully
perceive themselves to occupy a unique place in the world that
has excelled in every aspect, including literature, philosophy,
art, religion, and technology. Accordingly, the Chinese people
have their own ideas about how to govern China based on their
glorious past and exalted history. Being ruled by a Soviet
knockoff ideology is not part of the plan, nor should it be,
and this insight introduces tremendous vulnerability for the
Chinese Communist Party as their ideology is anchored and
remains dependent upon that Western ideology of Marxism/
Leninism. Thus, to move to a better future for the Chinese
people begins by recognizing that the CCP is illegitimate and
has no right to rule them.
In conclusion, the U.S. is now in a new cold war. The Sino-
American security competition is the great struggle of the 21st
century and promises to resolve the century's dispositive
question: whether the world will be free and protected by the
United States and its allies or fall into a totalitarian abyss
as sought by the CCP. The 20th century encountered the same
question, and freedom defeated communism. Today, the answer to
this question, will freedom or tyranny define the 21st century,
will be answered by Congress, the Administration, U.S. allies
and partners, and, ultimately, the American people. The
leadership and focus of this Committee will contribute to
ensuring that the answer will be the same in the 21st century
as it was in the last: freedom will triumph over the CCP's
tyranny.
Thank you very much, indeed, for the great honor and
opportunity to address this testimony. I look forward to
addressing your questions.
Chairman Comer. Thank you very much. Mr. Atkinson?
STATEMENT OF ROBERT D. ATKINSON
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION FOUNDATION (ITIF)
Dr. Atkinson. Thank you, Chairman Comer and Ranking Member
Raskin and Members of the Committee. In the late 50s--I do not
remember what year it was--but there was the famous kitchen
debate with Vice President Nixon and Khrushchev, and Khrushchev
said, ``We will bury you,'' and what he meant by that was our
socialist, communist economy is going to be so much stronger
than your weak capitalist economy, and eventually we will win.
Now, that was a joke. I mean, he was not making a joke, but it
was a joke. There was simply no way the Russians could do that,
just because their system was so inept and so bureaucratic and
so controlled.
The Chinese Government learned from that, and so what they
have learned is, essentially, you have to have capitalism with
Chinese characteristics, and so they are a capitalist economy
in many, many ways. Their firms have an enormous amount of
freedom with one exception, you cannot criticize the CCP. But
beyond that, you can do what you want as long as you are
pushing for global market share and dominance.
So, I think it is really, really critical that we don't
compare them to the Soviets when it comes to the techno-
economic threat. They are more like Taiwan, Japan, Singapore,
Korea on massive amounts of steroids, and they make no bones
about hiding the ball. Yi Changliang, a leading official at
Chinese NDRC, wrote, ``At a time when this new round of techno-
scientific revolution and industrial transformation has not yet
gained its full momentum, there are grand expectations for
artificial intelligence, Big Data, cloud computing, and these
areas have become the main battlefield for innovation.''
So, that is really the key term. They are using the term
``battlefield.'' We do not talk to our Canadian colleagues and
say we have a battlefield for lumber. We have competition over
these industries, but not a battlefield, and that is really the
key point here. The Chinese see this as a global battle where
there is a winner and a loser, and, in particular, they are not
trying to win in the soybean market or the banking market. They
are trying to win in a set of advanced industries that are
critical to military capabilities as well as overall national
power.
They have already shown that they can do that, for example,
in solar power, in drones, in shipbuilding, in steel, in
telecom equipment. And now what they are doing is they are
going after a whole set of new industries: AI, quantum
computing. The Chinese are building more nuclear power plants,
and they have under construction, than the rest of the world
combined. Chinese are putting more money into quantum computing
R&D than every other government in the world combined. The
Chinese installed more robots last year, industrial robots,
than the rest of the world combined. They are making enormous
progress and their goal--they have now, by the way, the leading
quantum communication systems in the world. So, what they are
doing is an all-of-government approach to defeat us, to defeat
American technology capabilities as well as allied
capabilities.
So, what do we need to do? I think there are several things
we should not do, and one of the things that we should not do
is fall for the false hope of cooperation. So, you hear this
view all the time, well, you know, there are things that we are
competing with China, but we have to cooperate with them, and
my two favorites are, one is infectious diseases. So, let me
get this right. A country that put the COVID virus in the
world--now there is the question of did it come from a lab or
did it come from a wet market, I am not going to take a
position on that--but there is no question the Chinese hid the
ball on that and made it worse. And we are supposed to
cooperate with them? And the second is climate change. A
country that now is leading in global emissions has no desire
to reduce emissions, zero, unless it is in their interest.
We do not need to cooperate with China. What we do need to
do is figure out a way to confront them--and this part is
critical--in ways that do not hurt us. So, if I am in a fight
with somebody and they are fighting me, and I can punch him in
the face and I break my hand, probably not the best thing for
me to do. But if I can kick him in the kneecap and not hurt my
leg, that is probably better. So, we have to figure out ways
that can challenge them without hurting us.
And one of the key things I think we need to do is three
things: put in place a more robust competitiveness strategy.
And Congressman Raskin, you rightly alluded to the many things
that Congress and the Biden Administration have done. I
certainly applaud that, but we ought to keep going. Second, we
have called for the establishment of a National Competitiveness
Council in the White House focused on China and focused on
coordinating all the various agencies. I really commend what
your Committee has done in terms of getting agencies to figure
this out because they do not think about this from a China
perspective. Each agency thinks about this from their own
narrow perspective, which is reasonable and understandable, but
it does not work anymore. We also have to have, essentially, a
training program in government where we train government
agencies and officials on what the threat is. It is striking to
me when I talk to government agencies and officials how little
they know about this, and I think we need to do a lot more on
that.
So, with that, thank you so much, and I apologize for
running over.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Mr.
Cella.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH CELLA
FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO
FIJI, KIRIBATI, NAURU, TONGA, AND TUVAL
FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL
PONTIFEX GROUP
Mr. Cella. Good morning, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member
Raskin, and distinguished Members of this Committee. Thank you
for inviting me to testify.
In his February 2023 speech entitled, ``An Intelligence
Officer's Perspective on China,'' now retired Navy Admiral,
Mike Studeman, who, then serving as Commander of ONI, stated,
``The China problem is more gigantic than understood or
appreciated.'' Political warfare by the government of the
People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, poses
an existential threat to the United States of America. My
testimony today, based on my experience in this cold war with
the CCP as a U.S. diplomat, a concerned American, and a
resident of Michigan, focuses on failures of the Federal
Government to both understand the depth and breadth of this
threat and to effectively counter it.
I witnessed firsthand the CCP's impactful use of political
and economic warfare across the Indo-Pacific. Through this,
China has effectively bypassed our historic defensive barriers
in the Pacific, called the First and Second Island Chains,
endangering Hawaii, Guam, U.S. territories, and our friends and
allies there. Despite ample warning by Pacific Island leaders,
the Federal Government did little over the years to stop
China's ominous advance. During my accreditation trip to
Kiribati, I visited the Friendship Bridge connecting North and
South Tarawa, paid for by the DoD funding and dedicated in 2010
by my former late predecessor, Ambassador Steve McGann. It was
built using World War II-era Bailey Bridge construction design,
certainly far deficient for the punishing weather at the
equator. The bridge was well past its temporary design purpose,
patched-in diamond plate sheeting scattered on it, rusting
apart and unsafe. I worked aggressively with INDOPACOM to
secure the funding to replace the bridge. It was ultimately
approved, however, it got snagged between the Pentagon and the
state Department bureaucracies. In my understanding, it
remained snagged. The CCP-owned China Railway Group swooped in
and built an auxiliary cement bridge, though underwater during
high tide. Our Friendship Bridge is in tatters, and it is my
understanding it is now impassable.
I have also witnessed malign influence through a
subnational incursion and influence operation by a PRC-based
and CCP-tied lithium-ion battery manufacturer, Gotion, in Green
Charter Township, Michigan. And that is just one of many
examples across the United States that threatens our national
security and sovereignty. Roughly 70 miles from Gotion's
proposed facility is a secure U.S. military installation known
as Camp Grayling. It is the hub of the National All-Domain
Warfighting Center, which trains our troops and those of our
allies, including Taiwan, in strategic and tactical battle
operations. Gotion submitted a voluntary declaration to the
Committee on Foreign Investment of the United States in the
spring of 2023, quite surprisingly declared it an ``uncovered
real estate transaction.''
In recent weeks, the Biden Administration proposed a rule
that added over 50 U.S. military bases, including Camp
Grayling, for required reviews by CFIUS when a deal involving a
foreign company such as Gotion falls within a 100-mile radius
of a military facility. Perplexing, while our defense officials
likely instituted this rule on account of mission-critical
assets at Camp Grayling there, it is not retroactive and it
does not apply to Gotion. Through my volunteer work for the
MCESRG, in recent days I was alarmed to discover Federal
officials either ignored or overlooked a February 2020 U.S.
Treasury Department CFIUS rule regarding joint-use military
facilities that covers the Gotion transaction given the Army
Airfield at Camp Grayling.
I wrote to Mr. Paul Rosen, the Assistant Secretary of State
at the Treasury for Investment Security, requesting he
reexamine Gotion's declarations under that regulation and
scrutinize the project accordingly. Court filings this past
Friday revealed offers by Gotion to now recall trustees that
seems to involve elite capture, corruption, influence peddling,
and enrichment. These offers include all-expense-paid trips to
China, a sweetheart real estate purchase that would have netted
a recalled trustee $2 million, and employment in the event that
they were recalled. Text messages between a Gotion official and
a recalled trustee read, ``We got each other's backs'' and
``You have my back. Now it is my turn to help,'' as well, ``You
have been a great partner and becoming an even better friend. I
will help however I can.'' Those were never disclosed and below
the radar of the Federal Government.
This is precisely why our national security intelligence
agencies in 2022 convened and warned a bipartisan group of
state-elected and local leaders and business officials to be
very careful and wary about the grave risks about engaging in
these seemingly benign business deals with companies based in
the PRC. And instead of following the directives to conduct
them transparently, do due diligence, perform strict scrutiny,
ensure transparency, integrity, and accountability, the
government and business elites with this project did exactly
the opposite. They moved fast and in secret, binding them and
shrouding them in 5- and 10-year nondisclosure agreements using
secret code names. So, this ruptures the consent of the
governed and certainly jeopardizes our national security.
These events offer a cautionary tale on the importance of
intergovernmental agency process that first acknowledges the
serious threat, the political and economic warfare being waged
by the CCP; second, it is nimble spotting these threats; and
third, can defend, if not prevent, them within our sovereign
Nation. Thank you for your time and attention, and I look
forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Comer. Thank you very much. Mr. Stokes?
STATEMENT OF JACOB STOKES
SENIOR FELLOW (FOCUSED ON CHINA)
INDO-PACIFIC SECURITY PROGRAM
CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY
Mr. Stokes. Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, and
distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on this critical topic. I will
start by assessing the challenge and then offer some thoughts
on how to respond.
The People's Republic of China, particularly under the rule
of CCP General Secretary, Xi Jinping, poses the most
consequential challenge to American interests and values over
the coming decades. How the United States wages strategic
competition with China will determine the course of world
affairs in this century. The challenge from Beijing is most
acute in East Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region, but
China's reach is increasingly global, to include the United
States. Specifically, regarding China's political warfare, the
CCP's foundational goal is to combat threats to its hold on
power domestically in China and generally make the world safe
for authoritarianism. As part of that campaign, Beijing seeks
to paint democracies as corrupt, internally divided,
tumultuous, and incapable of tackling big problems facing
society.
So, what should we, the United States, do about it? A
comprehensive U.S. strategy to compete with China should have
several pillars. First, the United States needs a credible
military deterrent to guard against PRC aggression. Second, we
should forge an economic, financial, and trade strategy that
ensures U.S. companies and workers compete in the global
economy on a level playing field. Third, we must continue to
innovate cutting-edge civilian and military technologies, like
artificial intelligence and quantum computing, and actively
work to increase their uptake across both the private and
public sectors. Fourth, our diplomacy should sustain and expand
coalitions of allies, partners, and like-minded countries to
magnify the impact of our activities across the other pillars.
U.S.-China competition is too often portrayed as a contest
between two countries when it is actually a contest of
coalitions. Coalition building is painstaking and sometimes
requires frustrating compromises, but it is worth the effort
because it allows the United States to effectively
counterbalance Beijing's actions that violate international
rules and norms, and even engage China diplomatically on a
selective basis from a position of strength. As for responding
to the PRC's political warfare specifically, the United States
should assist vulnerable countries in exposing and punishing
inappropriate PRC influence, whether in the form of political
interference, transnational repression, or economic or security
espionage. Washington can do so by sharing intelligence on how
China operates, supporting fact-based investigations by civil
society and independent media outlets, and bolstering strong
institutions and the rule of law around the world. The good
news is that strengthening the foundations of democracies
overseas, a worthy objective in its own right, helps counter
PRC influence, too.
Meanwhile, we face similar challenges from the CCP here at
home, as we have heard. The United States must also protect
against efforts by the PRC party-state to interfere with and
weaken our democracy and sow division and discord. Front and
center in that fight, of course, are law enforcement and
counterintelligence activities that are both vigorous and
vigilant. They should deny and impose costs on China for
efforts to influence the sovereign affairs of the United States
or to steal our technology or other secrets. Equally essential
are transparent and accountable institutions and processes
which can help inoculate us against the tools of CCP influence.
The actions we take to defend ourselves, however, will be both
ineffective and self-defeating unless they accord with American
values. The United States is engaged in an intense strategic
competition with China. That is a geopolitical fact.
Additionally, PRC intelligence draws on a wide range of
intelligence collectors. Those facts could tempt the United
States to go beyond targeted commonsense controls in key
sectors and instead cast all people of Chinese or even Asian
descent as suspect. We could even be tempted to turn away from
our country's historical role as a place where people seeking a
better life yearn to live. We must resist those temptations
because they would play right into the CCP's hands. America's
ability to attract the best and brightest from around the world
to come to our country and adopt our way of life, indeed, our
political ideology is an asymmetric geopolitical advantage that
we squander at our peril. It is the reason why our economy is
growing when China's is not, why our innovation ecosystem leads
the world. In other words, we cannot effectively protect
America by becoming more like China.
Finally, in addition to disrupting the tools the CCP uses
to influence and interfere, we should refute Beijing's
underlying argument by demonstrating that democracy can deliver
freedom, prosperity, and security for its citizens in America
and around the world. To put it in political warfare terms,
delivering on the promise of democracy will act as a potent
counteroffensive to China's efforts.
I will conclude my remarks there. Thank you again for the
opportunity to speak, and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Comer. Thank you all very much for your opening
statements. We will now begin the questions. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Gosar, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Thayer,
the United States is kind of responsible for China, right?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gosar. And that would be the Carter Doctrine, right?
Dr. Thayer. Well, it would be an aspect of a longer
tradition of that, although President Carter, of course, did
illuminate that issue.
Mr. Gosar. Right. So, what we actually did, we thought that
we can make China like us, and we just gave them our
technology, right?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir. We let them into our economic
ecosystem, and they have thrived, obviously, within that
ecosystem.
Mr. Gosar. And I think, Mr. Atkinson, you talked about
CFIUS. CFIUS is a poor constraint here because we saw that in
Uranium One. That has long gone past this point. So, I guess my
point is, if we are going to have some kind of a jurisdictional
boundary over China, don't you think it would be better to say,
instead of picking individual businesses, to say that no
foreign national can sit on any operating or oversight board of
any company in the United States? Wouldn't that be something of
better value than trying to target one business after another?
Mr. Cella. I think that would be a start. I think another
alternative would be to perhaps consider passing an updated
version of the National Security Act of 1947 where the whole of
government would have to abide by such rules that you point to.
Mr. Gosar. Yes. You know, in fact, Mr. Stokes, you talked
about the rule of law, pretty much so, and if I was talking
about an operating partner or an oversight partner and they had
to be U.S. citizens', violation of that is treason, right?
Mr. Stokes. I do not know the legal definition, sir.
Mr. Gosar. Well, I mean, they are a violation of other
country, all these would be a national defense item, OK? Let us
talk about intellectual property. When I first came here in
2010, we were No. 1 in the world. We are not even in the top 10
right now. You know, can you address that and China, Dr.
Thayer?
Dr. Thayer. Well, indeed, what we have seen, of course, is
a shift in relative power from the United States to the
People's Republic of China. That has been conducted willingly
by many American firms who have shared their technology with
the People's Republic of China. China also has, through legal
and illegal means, acquired our technology. And so, what we
have seen, in essence, is really the greatest transfer of
technology, of intellectual acumen, of knowledge about
processes with respect to production, with respect to
marketing, with respect to execution in history.
Mr. Gosar. Ambassador Cella, so really, the first to file
violated the whole premise of our Constitution instead of first
to discover, right?
Mr. Cella. Pardon me?
Mr. Gosar. So, the whole premise of first to file instead
of first to discover, like what we were told would change the
whole concept of intellectual property, was a violation of our
Constitution, right? Would you say that?
Mr. Cella. I am not a constitutional scholar, sir.
Mr. Gosar. Well, we gained the protections, too. Mr.
Stokes, would you agree with that?
Mr. Stokes. I also do not know the law there.
Mr. Gosar. OK. Well, what we did is we said first to file,
and we allowed these trolls, whether the foreign nationals or
some of these big companies here, we allowed them to file, and
then we said we are going to give you this little appeasement
for the guy who actually found that to challenge that. It never
works that way. Our intellectual property has been sold out. We
are now not even in the top 10, and that really plays a big
difference in our aspects. Ambassador Cella, if you were to
prioritize which parts of business you would like to look at
very carefully, how would you prioritize those?
Mr. Cella. Congressman, I would say a very finely focused
laser should be targeted to any sector that involves critical
technologies, particularly those that entangle military
technologies and space technologies and certainly critical
minerals, and there are gaping holes in that throughout the
private sector and even the university sector. And there are
citizens, civilians that are engaged on this and tracking and
filing lawsuits, whistleblowing, where we are particularly
vulnerable in this.
Mr. Gosar. Would you agree that if we had NGO's out there,
nongovernment entities, if they were to take one penny, full
disclosure should become about however they get their funding?
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Cella. Yes.
Mr. Gosar. How about you, Dr. Thayer? Would you agree with
that?
Dr. Thayer. Absolutely. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gosar. How about you, Mr. Atkinson? Would you agree
with that?
Dr. Atkinson. Sure.
Mr. Gosar. How about you, Mr. Stokes?
Mr. Stokes. Absolutely.
Mr. Gosar. God love you. I yield back.
Ms. Mace. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Mace.
Ms. Mace. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record
an article from March that says that, ``Biden Praises Xi as a
`Smart, Smart Guy,' Promises to `Hold China Accountable'.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Mace. And if the Ranking Member is going to harp on
President Trump's comments about President Xi, he should note
that President Biden praised Xi as a smart, smart guy. Good
morning.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking
Member.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to Ms.
Mace. Thank you to all the witnesses for your excellent
testimony.
Mr. Stokes, you said it is a mistake to characterize what
is going on as a competition just between two countries. You
are saying it is a contest between coalitions. Would you just
briefly tell us who are the main actors or great powers within
each coalition?
Mr. Stokes. Yes, absolutely, Ranking Member. So, certainly,
I would say on the one side we have the United States and our
democratic allies and partners, both in Europe and the Indo-
Pacific. And I would say on the other side you have China in an
increasingly close connection with Russia, working at a
strategic level, and then paired in with their partners in
North Korea and Iran, leading more of an authoritarian bloc.
And I would say there is a group of countries in between that
you can think of as sort of swing states that we should be kind
of focusing on how do we bring them into our coalition?
Mr. Raskin. But what is the role that political propaganda
and disinformation play in this struggle today?
Mr. Stokes. In my view, the role that those things play is
to make authoritarianism seem like it works better than it
does, and to make an argument for that among people who are,
you know, casting about for what system is going to give them
the best way of life going forward. And so, I think we both
have to be on the defensive, but also go out and make the case
for democracy in an affirmative way.
Mr. Raskin. I wonder what the panelists think about the
importance of the struggle in Ukraine today against Putin's
filthy imperialist invasion of Ukraine, what would a victory
for the people of Ukraine against Russian aggression mean for
our struggle against China, and what would a loss to Russia
mean for the struggle against China. Dr. Thayer, what are your
thoughts on that?
Dr. Thayer. Ranking Member Raskin, thank you for the
question. It is a critically important issue. A loss to Russia,
of course, would be a tremendous blow to Xi Jinping, who has
made Putin his meridian, right? Putin is a soldier executing
the tasks assigned to him by Xi Jinping, in essence. We can
recall, of course, the meeting that they had before the
invasion in February 2022, where Xi Jinping gave him the green
light. So, Ukrainian defeat of Russia is a tremendous blow to
Communist China.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. Mr. Atkinson, do you agree with
that?
Dr. Atkinson. I am not a military expert. I do not do
foreign policy, so I am afraid I cannot answer that.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. Mr. Cella, do you agree that a
victory for Ukraine against Putin's invasion is critical to our
ability to stand up to the tyrants and autocrats in China?
Mr. Cella. I would say what has befallen Ukraine is a
tragedy, and I would say through what has happened via Russia,
China is pressure testing us. They are watching how we engage.
And I am not a military expert, certainly, nor am I a foreign
policy expert in that realm, but it has to be handled with all
due care----
Mr. Raskin. Great. And Mr. Stokes?
Mr. Cella [continuing]. To ensure freedom.
Mr. Stokes. Yes. I think one lesson that Xi Jinping could
draw from that would be that in a war of aggression, you only
have to wait the United States and its allies and partners out,
you know, 2, 2 1/2 years, and then you can get away with the,
you know, grabbing the territory that you want.
Mr. Raskin. So, what would that mean in the case of Taiwan,
for example?
Mr. Stokes. I think, you know, it would make it more likely
that Xi Jinping would, you know, make an attempt on Taiwan, and
I think one of the ways you can, you know, analytical ways you
can draw from that is just see China's support for Russia. It
is both its tangible support, but also it is political and
diplomatic support, ``legitimate security interests'' is the
term that China uses. And so, it is an issue of principle in
addition to an issue of military power.
Mr. Raskin. OK. And what do you think is the importance of
strengthening American political institutions against
subversion and attack from those who would try to challenge our
basic constitutional structure?
Mr. Stokes. Well, I think, you know, making them stronger
and more resilient is a strategy of denial for those who would
try to interfere in American democracy, so just make it harder
to be successful in so that we can have a strategy of denial.
And then add to that a strategy of punishment in those
instances where we see China, Russia, other hostile nations
trying to interfere directly in our system.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cloud.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being
here. This is certainly one of the most urgent matters that we
are dealing with. I find it odd that as we watch the news, very
often, it is not that they are lying, although sometimes that
is the case. It is just we are not talking about things that
are essentially important and things that are going to matter
20, 30 years from now. Well, this topic certainly will and how
we address it, so thank you for being here. Thank you, Chair,
for hosting this.
Dr. Thayer, I think it was you who talked about ``this is
the greatest shift in American power that we have seen
transferring to the east.'' This was predicted. Actually, U.S.
National Intelligence Council in November 2008 released a
report, and they do this periodically, as I am sure you all
know. But they said the unprecedented shift in relative wealth
and economic power roughly from West to East is now underway
and will continue. They said the United States in relative
strength, even in military realm, will decline and that U.S.
leverage will become more and more constrained in terms of
size, speed, and directional flow. The transfer of global
wealth and economic power now underway roughly from East to
West is happening without precedent in modern history.
And it went on and it explained why it was happening. It
said it is happening for two reasons: one, we are sending
manufacturing overseas and we are sending oil and gas revenues
overseas, and yet, it seems like we have not changed course
when the prescription was there as it addressed the problem,
that we continue to send overseas. And you also called this a
cold war. I have read ``Unrestricted Warfare.'' I know a lot of
people have, but, you know, the different ways that they talk
about providing warfare, and this is not even a comprehensive
list. Of course, they list the traditional ones as well.
Mr. Atkinson, you mentioned some of these: trade warfare,
network warfare, biological warfare, biochemical resource
warfare. I think what is going on at our border and even how
they are taking advantage of what is happening at the border
and causing us to use resources, not to mention what they are
getting across our border in the ways of fentanyl and military-
aged single adults that are coming across our border. Economic
aid, warfare, regulatory warfare, smuggling, drug warfare,
electronic space, it just goes on and on. As part of that, they
said can special funds be set up to exert greater influence on
another country's government and legislature through lobbying?
Could buying or gaining control of stocks be used to turn
another country's newspapers and television stations into tools
of media warfare? I mean, they are in a no-holds-barred, all-
the-collateral, it seems, warfare against the United States.
And so, it seems like we have to, first of all, recognize the
moment, and I know that you all do. I think you are here
bringing some awareness to that, but I have not felt like our
government and certainly our State Department has felt that.
I was wondering, Mr. Ceya--did I say it right--``Cella,''
yes--Mr. Cella, if you could explain to me what you have seen
in regards of our State Department and what you think we should
be doing to counter what we are seeing coming from China?
Mr. Cella. Certainly. Thank you for the question, sir. I
would say that we are where we are. I would say that after the
cold war, in 1993, we kind of pulled up tent stakes. End of
history, I would say, could be symbolized in the Indo-Pacific
with closing of our embassy in the Solomon Islands. China has
been in that realm, in the late 80's, doing irregular things.
They had approval by UNESCO to put a tide monitoring station at
Fiery Cross Reef. What is the Fiery Cross Reef now? A 10,000-
foot runway, a deep-water port, some suggest some missile
armaments as well.
So, they have done a lot in a period of time, where, again,
obviously, our ken shifted to the Middle East and our
engagements there. But we have a lot of time to make up for,
and I think it is imperative for really all the interagencies,
State Department, to provide information and education to the
public at large. It is a whole-of-society, a whole-of-
government engagement. One element, I think, that is lacking
within the Foreign Service Institute, for instance, would be to
have a segment, a section on political warfare. What it is, to
marinate in who the CCP is, who General Secretary Xi Jinping
is, what their objectives are, and what they can do before they
head out to post and what they need to do when they are at
post.
Mr. Cloud. When I have talked to leaders, Ambassadors from
other countries, I have heard this often from different
continents, even, from different leaders, and they say right
now obviously, we love the United States, its history of
freedom. We want to align ourselves to that, but when we talk
to China, we hear about roads, bridges. When we talk to our
State Department, we get a lecture, and it is social
reengineering, you know, in many cases, values that really are
not embraced in their country, and it is not really about
creating a relationship or certainly projecting American
interests. Do you have anything to say to that?
Mr. Cella. I would say just, back to the Foreign Service
Institute, an understated tool, I think, that we really should
build on that I found useful when I was at post, using our
Judeo-Christian roots as a country and use it as a means of
outreach in terms of soft power engagement with our host
countries. That has a mighty impact. China does not do that.
They do not know how to do it.
Mr. Cloud. All right.
Mr. Cella. It is not here and not there. That has to be
complemented, I think, by some very meaningful engagements. I
think the COFA, for instance, one material way. I guess that
when I was there, this was an appeal from other windswept
nations that I was accredited to, suffering again. There is
great affinity for us, there is great comity to us, we fought
for them, bled for them, died for them in World War II--would
to have been to extend COFA to include countries such as Nauru
and Kiribati, who, within the last 5 years, have shifted
allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing.
Mr. Cloud. I see my time has expired.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes Ms. Norton from Washington, DC.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Biden-Harris
Administration knows that one of the best ways to counter the
Chinese Communist Party is to outcompete them economically.
That is why President Biden championed the Inflation Reduction
Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, and thanks to these landmark
laws, American innovation is thriving and more people have
high-paying domestic manufacturing jobs. Now America is
maintaining a competitive advantage over China in strategic
sectors by investing in our workforce and in American
businesses. Within 1 year of the CHIPS and Science Act becoming
law, American companies announced over $160 billion in
investments in semiconductors and electronics, and the
semiconductor manufacturing job market is now growing after
decades of decline.
So, Mr. Stokes, the CHIPS and Science Act is a strong
investment in America, but how does it help us compete with
China?
Mr. Stokes. I think, in general, you know, chips are
essential for all of modern industry. And so, to be able to
have supply chains based in our own country, in addition to
those based in friendly countries, allies and partners, helps
improve the resilience of the American economy overall, and
that makes us more able to compete with China.
Ms. Norton. The Inflation Reduction Act also invests in
manufacturing and innovation. It is projected to create 1.5
million new jobs over the next decade. Dr. Atkinson, how does
the Inflation Reduction Act and its investments in electric
vehicle batteries and other clean technology help reduce
American dependence on Chinese manufacturers?
Dr. Atkinson. Thank you, Congresswoman. There is no
question that the generous incentives in IRA have played a big
role in attracting particularly foreign investment, and we see
a lot of Korean companies, Japanese companies, European
companies now investing in factories and R&D facilities, so
that is critical. But what I would add on the semiconductor
part as well as this part, it is not enough just to attract
factories here. You look at the troubles now that Intel is
facing. Ultimately, what the Chinese want to do is they want to
destroy Intel, they want to destroy Boeing, they want to
destroy Merck. And to be fair, the CHIPS and Science Act, which
we fully supported, is not really a fix for that. Intel is not
making any money on this program because they are basically
investing in America, a fab or fabs, that cost a lot more than
if they were investing in Asia.
So, while it is a critical program to get production here,
it does not address the core problem of our companies facing
predatory practices against Chinese. So overall, IRA is a very
important program, it helps, but there are a lot of other
sectors and there is more work to be done.
Ms. Norton. Well, the Biden-Harris Administration is
securing America's economy, both now and in the future, to
compete strategically with China and fight back against the
Chinese Communist Party. This Administration knows what it
takes to invest in America's workforce, and this
Administration, unlike the Trump Administration, has a strong
approach to bolstering our economy that puts American families
first. Thank you, and I yield any time I have left to the
Ranking Member.
Mr. Raskin. Well, thank you very kindly. Mr. Chairman, I
did want to do a unanimous consent request. I looked into the
article that was cited by Representative Mace, and indeed,
President Biden did call President Xi a smart guy. It was in
this context. He said, ``We are going to hold China accountable
to follow the rules,'' Biden said. He framed the competition
between Washington and Beijing as part of a broader battle
between democracy and autocracy, saying that Xi ``does not have
a democratic bone in his body, but he is a smart, smart guy.''
Now, compare that to what we saw with President Trump,
where he praised the brilliance and the genius of President Xi
and said that he envied Xi's control over his body and the
whole society snaps to attention when he speaks, and that is
what he wants in America, too. So, I do not think President
Biden was ever emulating General Xi's political tact, but in
any event, I would like to submit that for the record.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
The Chair now recognizes Dr. Foxx from North Carolina.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank our
witnesses for being here today.
Dr. Thayer, as China asserts itself as a global power, it
is important that the United States maintains a competitive
edge so we can prevail against any potential threats. However,
we see repeated instances where the United States fails to
comprehend the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party, or
CCP, and allows the CCP to infiltrate and exploit our
institutions for nefarious purposes. While the American
university system was once one of our greatest assets in the
competition for fast innovation and dynamic leadership, the
CCP's malign influence and subversion have turned it into a
potential liability. Foreign dollars flow into the universities
without accountability and consistently undermine our domestic
influence. Confucius Institutes subvert traditional American
values in key areas like equipping students with the skills to
enter the workforce. American universities are faltering.
How is it that the Federal Government has failed to
comprehend the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party to
our institutions and especially our university system? And let
me give a finer point on that: how has the lack of leadership
from the Biden-Harris Administration enabled the CCP's
political warfare and undermining of our institutions?
Dr. Thayer. I thank the representative for the question. Of
course, that is essentially important to understand how this
occurred. There are three points to make here. First, the
communist leader, Deng Xiaoping, was one of the greatest
strategists of the 20th century when he recognized to save the
Chinese Communist Party, he was going to have to reach out to
American investors. He was going to have to work out to
Americans and make them partners, really, in manufacturing and
trade with the People's Republic of China. That set us on a
path of engagement with China, where there was the belief in
the United States that by engaging with China, we would make it
democratic, we would reform it. And, of course, that has not
come to pass, and, in fact, the tyranny of the CCP has only
hardened. With that investment in China, of course, we have
communities, we have many individuals who have investments in
the People's Republic of China and have, of course, their
resources to employ to sustain those relationships. So, as you
observed, of course, it is very a difficult problem to resolve.
Third issue, a point just succinctly to make in this
respect, is that it would be very valuable for the Biden
Administration to take bold measures to call out the record,
the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party so that all
Americans looking at China, the People's Republic of China, can
see the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party, what they are
doing, of course, in the Muslim genocide in Xinjiang and
elsewhere, crushing of the Tibetan people, crushing of their
own people, and in international politics, of course, hyper
aggression against the Philippines, for example.
Ms. Foxx. All right. Well, I think the American people are
smart enough to understand what a threat China is. I just think
the Biden-Harris Administration has no clue.
Ambassador Cella, this Committee and others have uncovered
countless examples of the CCP's hyper-aggressive political
warfare tactics, including CCP efforts to weaken America
through economic warfare, as we just heard. As we have
discussed, numerous instances of the CCP exploiting academic
collaborations and U.S. taxpayer funded research for its own
military gain. Based on your experience as Ambassador, what
examples of this kind of economic warfare have you seen, and
what is China's goal?
Mr. Cella. I will share with you an anecdote on the other
side of my service in the state of Michigan, reverting back to
my testimony when I mentioned the PRC-based, CCP-tied company,
Gotion, that is trying to work its way there. In February 2022,
the top executives of Gotion--PRC nationals that came in,
leadership in the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese people's
consultant of Congress--they requested to divert from their
planned itinerary and asked to see the AI laboratory at Ferris
State University. Ferris State University is one of only two
universities in the United States of America that are funded by
the NSA and the DoD to do cyber studies, satellite studies,
cybersecurity, and the driver of the bus was told to not ask
them any questions or have conversations with them. That
program has nothing to do what Gotion's designs are. I would
say probably we know what their designs are, and that is
indicative and troubling. So, our guard needs to be up, and it
is not, Madam Congresswoman.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you again to our witnesses. Mr. Atkinson, I
am going to submit a question for the record for you. My time
is up, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields. The Chair now
recognizes the Co-Chair of the China Task Force, the gentleman
from Illinois, Mr. Krishnamoorthi.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to turn to
a comment that you made and an article that you wrote, Dr.
Thayer, about engagement with China. In this article, you
write, ``The U.S. Must End Engagement with PRC Now.'' Isn't
that what it says?
Dr. Thayer. What is the title, sir, if you could share?
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Title is, ``The U.S. Must End
Engagement with PRC Now.''
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. OK. In the article, you wrote that we
must halt engagement. That is what you wrote, right?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And you wrote that, ``This fundamental
fact was understood during the Trump Administration,'' right?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir. The Trump Administration took
measures to bring about fundamental change from the engagement
policies that we had had in the post-cold war period.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Right, and to kind of reduce
engagement, halt engagement, as you said. Well, let us look at
the facts.
[Photos]
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me show you the first picture, this
graphic here. Here is a picture of the first summit of Trump
and Xi at Mar-a-Lago. That is Trump and Xi, right, Dr. Thayer?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me show you this next graphic.
[Photo]
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Here is Chairman Xi hosting Donald
Trump in China. That is Trump and Xi, right?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me show you this next picture.
[Photo]
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. This is a picture of Donald Trump
engaging with Chairman Xi in Hamburg, Germany. Isn't that,
right?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir. It is a picture of those individuals.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And let me show you this next one.
[Photo]
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Here is a picture of Donald Trump with
Xi in Buenos Aires, engaging again, right?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And let me show you this next one.
[Photo]
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Here is a picture of Donald Trump and
Chairman Xi engaging with each other in Osaka, Japan. That is
Trump and Xi, correct?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Dr. Thayer, these are all official
meetings between Donald Trump and Chairman Xi, and I count just
five in these pictures here, and I think there are a lot more.
I would not agree with you at all that we should halt
engagement between the U.S. and the PRC or that Trump did not
engage with China. I believe that senior-level engagement with
China is important. I actually agree with what President Trump
did, which is engage the PRC. And I would encourage the next
President, whoever he or she is, to continue that engagement,
not halt it, as you would suggest, but to continue it, in order
to make clear to the other side what our red lines are and what
type of behavior we would expect of them. And this type of
bipartisan approach by Republicans and Democrats is essential
for winning the strategic competition between the United States
and the Chinese Communist Party.
And I would like to turn to my next topic. One of Xi
Jinping's senior-most advisors is a gentleman named Wang
Huning. Wang Huning is a member of the Standing Committee of
the Politburo, one of the top seven people in China. He wrote a
book called, ``America Against America,'' in which he describes
America as a crisis-ridden society, hopelessly divided--
hopelessly divided--including between Democrats and
Republicans. Mr. Stokes, you would agree with me that the CCP
and other foreign adversaries seek to keep us fighting,
Republicans and Democrats fighting with each other because in
that state, we are much weaker in the competition between the
U.S. and China, correct?
Mr. Stokes. Yes, Congressman, I agree.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And so, I feel, Mr. Chairman and
Ranking Member, partisanship is completely counterproductive to
our China policy, and that as the Ranking Member of the Select
Committee on the CCP, we must pursue a bipartisan policy
because anything else is exactly what the CCP would want. Let
me turn to my final topic. Mr. Atkinson, you would agree with
me that the competition between the United States and the CCP
is not a quarrel with the Chinese people, correct?
Dr. Atkinson. Correct.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And it is not a quarrel with people of
Chinese origin, correct?
Dr. Atkinson. Correct.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And, Ambassador Cella, we should never
engage in stereotyping about Asian-American people or Chinese-
origin people, right?
Mr. Cella. One hundred percent, and if it happens, it
should be condemned.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And if we did engage in that type of
stereotyping, that is exactly what the CCP would want us to do,
right?
Mr. Cella. They are waging political warfare when they do
it, and we should not be complicit in any way, shape, or form.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And so, Mr. Stokes, in all of our
comments, in all of our rhetoric, whoever we are, Democrats,
Republicans, or anyone else, we should never, ever engage in
any type of rhetoric or behavior that could stoke anti-Asian or
anti-Chinese origin hate or stereotyping, right?
Mr. Stokes. Absolutely correct.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Biggs. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Brown from Ohio.
Ms. Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
the opportunity to, once again, discuss the ways in which----
Mr. Biggs. Excuse me. I am sorry. One second. Oh, gracious
sakes, Ms. Brown, I am sorry. I was supposed to go back to this
side, and that is my bad.
Ms. Brown. OK.
Mr. Biggs. I apologize. We will give you the full 5 because
you were just getting revved up there, so I apologize, yes.
Well, we will deduct that 15 seconds from Burchett to give to
you. So now, we will recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin,
Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. I will do a follow-up with, who was the last
guy answering questions? Mr. Cella, was that you? Is China
trying to divide America and cause dislike between various
groups?
Mr. Cella. I would say that is part of gray zone political
warfare. I do not have access to reports on the high side that
show their engagements in that respect, but I think there are
far more tangible ways that the public can see and should see.
Mr. Grothman. There is a book recently written by
Christopher Rufo, which has received a lot of favorable
comment, in which he goes back and finds communists in the 70s
pushing this racial divide, trying to divide America by race.
And of course, we have a lot of DEI professionals throughout
the government now who, I think, their goal is to divide
America and eventually destroy America by setting one ethnic
group against the other. Is that something you think that China
would like to have or to push the idea that people should view
themselves as members of a subgroup rather than individuals?
Mr. Cella. Whatever it takes. They would like to win
without fighting. Back----
Mr. Grothman. Right. That is exactly right. They believe
that they are going to take over the United States--I think
Khrushchev did--that they would take it over without a fight.
And then this is the type of division that will cause them to
destroy America when American Congressman push this DEI
garbage, right?
Yes, probably.
OK. Question for Dr. Thayer. We have a lot of farmland in
Wisconsin. You have studied China's behavior over a period of
years. They are trying to acquire American farmland. How
serious a threat is it when China acquires our farmland?
Dr. Thayer. It is a very serious threat. Obviously, we need
the food and the product of agricultural products that are
produced on that land.
Mr. Grothman. Right. And what becomes of the land when
China buys? Do they keep renting it out the American farmer? Do
they put buildings on the land? What happens when they buy this
land?
Dr. Thayer. Well, sir, oftentimes it is left fallow. It is
not used or it can be, in instances, used for nefarious
purposes. But by taking that farmland, when you understand,
when you think like the Chinese Communist Party, what you are
doing is denying those assets, of course, to the United States,
and you are sending a very important political message that the
Chinese Communist Party is becoming increasingly powerful in
the United States.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Which states have been the big chunks of
farmland purchased in?
Dr. Thayer. I think most of the states: North Dakota, South
Dakota, sir, I know have been. Kansas, I know, is subject to
this as well. Maine has as well.
Mr. Grothman. And what is going on with the farmland there
that used to have corn on it or whatever they have on it? It is
just sitting there or what? I assume, I do not know how it is
in those states--in Wisconsin, you would be paying property
taxes. So, they just pay the property taxes and let it sit
there, or what do they do?
Dr. Thayer. Sir, I would say, in general--of course, we are
not speaking with respect to any specifics--that the land is
used in a less productive or not to the extent or with the
intent that we would like to see the land used from the
standpoint of the health of the American people and the
American economy.
Mr. Grothman. OK. I guess I will follow up there again
because maybe I am not getting exactly the detail I want. What
physically becomes of that land? If they buy land in Kansas,
rent it out to another farmer, pay the property taxes and get
nothing for it. What is going on?
Dr. Thayer. They can do all of that, sir, and we also are
aware of a particularly pernicious practice of buying farmland
around Air Force bases and other military facilities, bases,
ports, where drones and other intelligence collections can
exist.
Mr. Grothman. Do they build anything on that land? OK. If
they buy, whatever, a 2,000-acre farm in North Dakota, do they
put anything on that land?
Dr. Thayer. I would say, as a rule of thumb, sir, no.
Mr. Grothman. OK. And so, do you think part of it is just
to exercise their power and tell the U.S., we are here, we are
taking over?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir. It is a very important and powerful
political message.
Mr. Grothman. And do any Chinese citizens who are here wind
up ever living on the land or farming the land?
Dr. Thayer. Sir, I believe that there are many reports
where they are resident on the land, and I would assume that
includes an aspect of living on the land there, sir.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
recognizes--and I apologize again, but this time we are really
ready to go--the gentlelady from Ohio, Ms. Brown.
Ms. Brown. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I would be
remiss if I did not take the opportunity to address my
colleague's comment as it relates to DEI. As a Black woman, I
just want to point out that people that look like me in this
country have been historically, traditionally, systemically,
institutionally, and structurally held back because of our skin
color. So, I am always disappointed when my colleagues attempt
to attack, dismantle, discredit, and just discount DEI when it
is really designed to provide equal opportunities when all
things and qualifications are equal, to attempt to bring people
who have not otherwise had these opportunities because of their
gender or race, to get those opportunities. So, I just want to
set the record straight that DEI does not divide, in fact,
grows the pie and gives opportunity to other people.
So, I appreciate the opportunity to once again discuss the
ways in which the Biden-Harris Administration is putting
America in the best possible position regarding competition
with the Chinese Communist Party. As a member of the Select
Committee on Strategic Competition With the CCP, I have been
monitoring firsthand the progress of this Administration and
Democratic policies in countering everything from illegal
Chinese manufacturing policies, which severely hurt American
industries, to tracing the fentanyl crisis back to its roots in
China.
I want to highlight three important steps the Biden Harris
Administration can and should continue to build on. One, since
President Biden and Vice President Harris signed the CHIPS and
Science Bill into law, U.S. companies have announced more than
$160 billion in investments in semiconductor and electronics.
CHIPS and Science also authorized $170 billion to support
science and innovation. No longer will the CCP continue to
outpace the United States thanks to this action. No. 2,
President Biden and Vice President Harris has brought together
our allies and partners to achieve substantial success on the
global stage, like the agreement between Australia, the United
Kingdom, and the United States, to commit to unprecedented
partnership in the Pacific. And three, the Biden-Harris
Administration has taken significant steps to hold bad actors
in China engaged in hacking, espionage, and cyber campaigns
accountable.
Now, in March, the Department of Justice indicted seven
Chinese hackers charged with targeting CCP critics, businesses,
and political officials through a coordinated cyber
intimidation effort, and given the unprecedented nature of
these attacks, this is where I would like to focus today. So, I
remain very concerned about potential misuse of artificial
intelligence by our adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran to
influence Americans through the spread of disinformation.
It is very troubling that social media sites, from Twitter
to TikTok, can act as a funnel of MDI--mis- and
disinformation--or, as I like to call it, lies, streaming
directly onto our phones each and every day. Earlier this year,
I introduced legislation, the Securing Elections from AI
Deception Act, to prohibit the use of artificial intelligence
to deprive or defraud individuals of their right to vote and
require disclaimers on AI-generated election content. I also
recently sent a letter to the Federal Elections Commission,
urging them to clarify Federal law prohibiting fraudulent
misrepresentation and how it applies to deceptive AI generated
political campaign communication. At the same time, the Biden-
Harris Administration is in overdrive, working to protect our
elections and exposing these plots as they are uncovered.
So, Mr. Stokes, can you speak to how the CCP is using
disinformation online to engage in persuasion campaigns in
democracies around the world, including our own?
Mr. Stokes. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Congresswoman. This
is absolutely a major challenge. China's point of innovation,
politically, for them has been the use of mis- and
disinformation. They test it out at home and then kind of roll
it out around the world. We have seen, for example, a group
known as Spamouflage, which is really focused on impersonating
U.S. people on social media platforms, again, to exacerbate
existing social tensions and divide Americans. And I think that
is just, as you indicated, the early edge of what AI might be
able to do to supercharge mis- and disinformation. And so, I
think we need to be preemptive in trying to respond to that
actively.
Ms. Brown. And with my additional 15 seconds, can you tell
us, maybe, in short order, how the Biden-Harris Administration
has held the CCP accountable over its spread of disinformation,
and what more Congress can do to support these efforts?
Mr. Stokes. Yes. I think calling it out as it is, taking
down, as you said, cyber networks that are based in China that
are doing espionage and disinformation, I think those are two
pieces of the puzzle.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, and with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield
back. Thank you.
Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady yields. The Chair now recognize
the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Palmer. Mr. Thayer, we have heard a lot of discussion
about where we are heading with renewables and EVs and things
like that. But aside from that, the United States is very
dependent on critical minerals, rare earth elements, and China
basically controls that. They control 70 percent of the cobalt
mining, 80 percent of the processing, and to my knowledge,
there is not a single major rare earth element refinery in the
western hemisphere. Do you consider that a threat to our
security?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir, absolutely, it is a threat.
Mr. Palmer. And one of the problems that we face in this
country, and it has particularly been true in the last 3 1/2
years, is the inability to get a mine permitted, processing
facility permitted, a refinery permitted. And I am very
concerned about this in regard to China because China has
already fired a shot across the bow a couple of years ago when
they cutoff supplies of germanium, and I believe the other one
was gallium, rare earth elements that we need, that our defense
forces need. I think that is a clear and present danger in
terms of a threat to our national economy, economic security,
and our national security.
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir, it certainly is a threat to it as
increasingly these minerals are needed for the sinews of
American national security.
Mr. Palmer. Right, and this is true not only in United
States, but in the entire Western Hemisphere.
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. When we do not have a single refinery for rare
earth elements in the western hemisphere, it is a major, major
problem, which leads me to the situation in Taiwan. If China
were to attack Taiwan, and it appeared they were going to be
successful, I think it is fairly clear that those semiconductor
microchip facilities would no longer exist. China has never
really mastered manufacturing of semiconductors, microchips.
Now, we are building four facilities here in the United States,
but we really do not make anything here, do we? We manufacture
things from parts we get from China, from these critical
minerals and rare earth elements.
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir, very few in the United States. Taiwan
is absolutely essential.
Mr. Palmer. So, what we have got to do here, if we want to
have the ability to defend ourselves against China, is we have
got to get serious about procuring our own critical minerals
through mining, processing, and refining, and that includes the
rare earth elements. Would you agree with that?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir, and I would broaden it to the entire
defense industrial base.
Mr. Palmer. Absolutely, and our economic base.
Dr. Thayer. Yes.
Mr. Palmer. I mean, the panel on your washing machine will
not function without these critical minerals. I would also like
to point out, if I may----
We are not in order.
Mr. Biggs. The Committee will be in order.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. TikTok is an
intelligence-gathering tool and a tool for degrading Western
culture and values. I also serve on the Energy and Commerce
Committee, and we had a classified briefing about this, and we
voted in this Congress to ban TikTok, which the Biden
Administration has delayed that until January to give
ByteDance, the parent company, an opportunity to divest TikTok.
Would you agree that TikTok is a threat to us as an
intelligence tool of China?
Dr. Thayer. It absolutely is.
Mr. Palmer. Does it degrade our culture and our values?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. All right. I also want to address the issue of
what China is doing in Sub-Saharan Africa and in South and
Central America. They are basically turning these countries
into vassal states through debt diplomacy. There are probably
eight or nine countries that are on the verge of default as a
result of this, and they are basically using these countries to
provide food and mineral resources. They are pillaging, in my
opinion, these countries, but at the same time, they are
advancing their ability to project power through infrastructure
construction, it is my understanding. And Mr. Atkins and Mr.
Cella, you can address this if you have knowledge of this, it
is my understanding that Xi Jinping will be in Peru in
November, cutting the ribbon on a major seaport that will
compete with our West Coast seaports, but will handle any naval
military vessel that China puts in the water. Is that correct?
Do you know?
Mr. Cella. I can speak to my knowledge of time of service
in the Indo-Pacific, and it spans the Indo-Pacific, sir.
Mr. Palmer. There is a book called, ``The Hundred-Year
Marathon,'' by Michael Pillsbury, one of the top analysts at
the CIA on China, that I commend everyone should read this
book. But China's agenda is, by 2049, is to establish itself as
the dominant power in the world, and I think the American
people and the people in the West need to be aware of this and
need to wake up and need to engage. I yield back.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our national security
deserves to be taken seriously. It deserves actual oversight.
This hearing today and all the others before, since we are on
part three now, are not serious. My Republican colleagues are
so hellbent on making a boogeyman, that they are deliberately
ignoring actual problems we can address and, in the process,
actually undermining our national security. And while our
national security must be a priority, it must also be balanced
in a way that is not bigoted, xenophobic, or racist. Only
focusing on China and the CCP not only leaves us vulnerable to
attacks from elsewhere, but it also poses a risk to the
personal safety, civil rights, and civil liberties of Chinese
Americans and Chinese immigrants living in the U.S.
We saw this with the Trump Administration's China
Initiative. They said this was meant to protect labs and
businesses from espionage. Instead, it was used as a tool of
discrimination. Nearly 90 percent of the more than 150 cases
brought by the FBI under the initiative were against ethnically
Chinese people, and many of the cases were the result of simple
administrative errors and no obvious connection to national
security or the theft of intellectual property or trade
secrets. So, Mr. Stokes, how did this initiative affect Chinese
American scientists, and did this impact our research
landscape?
Mr. Stokes. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I
think overall, the initiative--I think the Justice Department
has said that it, you know, fostered an environment of at least
apparent bias, right, and had a bit of a chilling factor over
the scientific community. So, while, on the one hand, it is
certainly right that China is seeking to steal our
technological and scientific secrets, I think it is right to
refocus the initiative on the actual networks at play, rather
than kind of casting aspersions over a broad group of people.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. It is giving major HUAC [sic] feelings
right now. This was just McCarthyism in a new form. Under the
initiative, scientists falsely accused of having ties to the
CCP had their lives upended and their careers compromised, but
Republicans want to bring back the China Initiative. In fact,
House Republicans recently passed a bill that would do just
that, though, under a slightly different name: the CCP
Initiative. Mr. Stokes, would changing the name of the China
Initiative to the CCP Initiative, without any concrete changes
to its implementation, make it more effective at uncovering
efforts to steal U.S. intellectual property?
Mr. Stokes. I think that the name does matter, but I think,
as you indicated, what actually goes on under the auspices of
the initiative matters just as much, if not more. And again
because of the scope of the threat, to be able to be focusing
resources on areas where are not where the threat is actually
emanating from, I think means we will miss some of where the
threat is actually emanating from. And so, to the extent that
you can revise the initiative to focus more on the real
networks at play, it would be both more effective and more
consistent with our values.
Ms. Lee. So, the assumption that a person is more likely to
be a CCP spy because they are Chinese or because someone might
think they look Chinese is incredibly harmful, and we have seen
it happen in this very Committee. In January 2023, Chairman
Comer appeared to repeatedly accuse Kathy Chung, a U.S. citizen
born in South Korea, very much not China, who previously served
as an aide to then Vice President Biden, of being a CCP spy. We
have also seen how the rhetoric around China, particularly from
Republicans, has led to increased discrimination against
Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants in the United States.
Just look back at what was being said during COVID. Trump
frequently referred to COVID-19 as ``the China virus, the
Chinese virus, and Kong flu.'' He has kept this going, using
this phrase at RNC just this past July and just last week at a
townhall in Michigan. This language led to a dramatic increase
in anti-Asian hate between 2019 and 2021, and 1 in 3 members of
the AAPI community experienced racial abuse in 2023.
Mr. Stokes, can you explain how this kind of language can
contribute to an increase in hate incidents or racial abuse
against Chinese and other Asian Americans?
Mr. Stokes. I would say, in general, the President of the
United States has an immense agenda-setting power, and so to
use language of that nature does contribute and, in certain
cases, may even enable people to take bias and racially
motivated actions. But, again, I think, at least from my
expertise, about how it relates to strategic competition with
China, the fact that we can be an inclusive, diverse society
that is governed by the rule of law is something we have, that
China does not. That is an asset that we should work very hard
to retain.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. I appreciate your comments. I just want
to conclude by saying, with caution, that when my colleagues
speak about the CCP threat in careless or bigoted or xenophobic
terms, they make all Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants
into a boogeyman, and it is wrong. We must talk about it in a
way that gets very specifically at the harm, at the threats,
and not in such a wide net that harms people who are innocent.
I thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady yields. The Chair now recognizes
the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Atkinson, I
believe you would be the gentleman to address what I am going
to inquire about. And please share your insight regarding the
Chinese Communist Party's presence as it manifests itself
within our university structures across the country,
acknowledging that the university culture is inherently open,
designed to include a free exchange of ideas. And of course, I
support that culture, but that freedom carries with it a
particular risk to our republic and to the free world when it
relates to the development of emerging technologies that can be
weaponized and militarized by the Communist Chinese Party. And
we are essentially funding it through our universities and
having CCP-associated students, in some way--them, their
family--let us say, they finish their studies, they return to
China, they end up working for the CCP. There are many, many
instances of this, and we are concerned about it. Are you
familiar with the report that was recently produced by the
House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and House
Education and Workforce Committee, Mr. Atkinson?
Dr. Atkinson. Somewhat.
Mr. Higgins. I hope you do not have it memorized. It is a
lot. But they had identified over 8,000 publications that DoD
funded that included papers covering topics like hypersonics,
directed energy weapons, nuclear and high energy physics, and
artificial intelligence, and autonomous solutions, all in the
realm of the emerging modern weaponry of the 21st century,
funded by DoD through our university systems that includes more
than 2,000 of those papers. DoD-funded papers included the PRC
coauthors who were directly affiliated with PRC's defense
research and industrial base. Will you share with this
Committee and with America, your opinion on what dangers that
presents to the entire world when we are willingly, knowingly
funding the advancement of Chinese Communist Party 21st century
weaponization through our university systems, Mr. Atkinson?
Dr. Atkinson. So, Congressman, I think the short answer is,
it is outrageous. It definitely is a way that the Chinese are
getting an advantage over us. Their core policy at the
beginning of what they do is suction up or hoover up as much
knowledge, technical knowledge, as possible. They are using
this weakness in our system to achieve that.
I will say it is important to, and you are not saying this,
I know, but some people say that, you know, that certain
university, we should blame them. Look, if I were a university
president and I want more money and the Federal Government is
cutting back, I am going to go to China. I think we need to
make that a choice there that they cannot make. So, I would
say, any university, public or private, that receives any
Chinese money should be ineligible for Federal funding.
A second area that I would say is, if you look at postdocs,
very few Chinese postdocs, if any, stay in this country. They
are coming here to advance their agenda. I think we should have
a ban on Chinese postdocs, but I would not put a ban, for
example, on Chinese Ph.D. students. Some of them stay here,
some of them do not, but clearly there is no way we should
allow any Chinese company or institution to fund our research
at university.
Mr. Higgins. May I ask you, sir, on this topic, do you
think it would be beneficial for Congress to discuss imposing
requirements on universities, our research and development
laboratory universities, that require basic level of security
within those laboratories, because if you have been in these
laboratories, and I am quite sure you have, there is virtually
no security. Even when you have, like, an electronic pass on
the door, commonly, you will find a door, like, propped open
because that is the culture in the university--it is a free
exchange of ideas and studies. So, do you think it would be
beneficial for the security of our country if Congress
discussed imposing security requirements on our universities?
Dr. Atkinson. I do. You did not see this problem back in
the 50's and 60's. Very few research universities collaborated
with the Soviet Union because we knew they are an adversary,
and yet our universities have not caught up to that. So, I 100
percent agree that we need to take stronger steps.
Mr. Higgins. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this hearing,
and I yield. And I thank the witnesses.
Chairman Comer. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. The
Chair now recognizes Mr. Goldman from New York.
Mr. Goldman. My, my, my, here we are for the third
installment of the Defending America from the CCP's Political
Warfare. After the Chairman's impeachment investigation
revealed zero connections between President Biden and Chinese
businesses, he nonetheless shockingly views the nakedly
partisan political sham impeachment as a success. Why? Because
President Biden dropped out of the Presidential race. Now, that
is a blatant admission that this Committee was used improperly
for partisan purposes, but that failure has not stopped the
Chairman from continuing down this road. Now that Governor Tim
Walz is on the ticket, Chairman Comer has quickly pivoted to
focus this Committee's resource on Governor Walz's time
teaching English in China, insinuating that somehow that is a
problem.
What we really need to be focusing on as it relates to
CCP's political warfare is defending this Committee from that
political warfare. Remember, we have two witnesses who were the
star witnesses of the impeachment investigation. The first, Gal
Luft, turned out to be an indicted unregistered foreign agent
of the Chinese Government. Among the allegations in Gal Luft's
indictment was that he, at the behest of Chinese entities,
recruited and paid an unnamed advisor to then President-Elect
Donald Trump to adopt pro-Chinese positions. And even though he
also was charged with making false statements to the FBI,
Chairman Comer bragged and said Gal Luft is a very credible
witness on Biden family corruption. That was not all the
political warfare that we experienced during this impeachment
investigation. Alexander Smirnov is a Russian indicted as a
source for the FBI, who literally met with Russian officials to
peddle lies to the FBI. You know what those lies were? They
were the same allegations that the Chairman made against Joe
Biden in this Committee, Russian propaganda.
Now, this is not, unfortunately, the Chairman's only
connections to China. Just months after our last hearing on the
CCP political influence, a news report alleged that while he
was the agriculture commissioner and candidate for Governor of
Kentucky, the Chairman was involved in a failed Chinese hemp
deal that would have benefited a campaign donor's company. This
deal not only failed, but it turned out that Chairman Comer
accidentally imported illegal marijuana instead of legal hemp,
so maybe we should be investigating Chairman Comer's ties to
the CCP.
But there is more political warfare from China that this
Committee should be investigating. Let us start with former
President Trump, who acknowledged that he had a Chinese bank
account that he used at least from 2013 to 2015 and his own
lawyer said that it remained open throughout his presidency. Or
let us talk about Ivanka Trump's fast-track trademarks that she
received in 2 months, 18 of them, even though it usually takes
18 months. Coincidentally, I am sure, it happened right after
Donald Trump intervened to save a sanctioned Chinese
electronics maker, ZTE. And China's biggest state-controlled
bank rented three floors in Trump Tower while Donald Trump was
President, netting him $7 million.
Now, the Chairman will not investigate these incidents
because the goal is not really here to combat political warfare
or foreign influence in our politics. It is simply to use this
Committee to baselessly smear Democratic Presidential and vice-
Presidential candidates. But the American people know which
Presidential candidate is a danger to our national security,
and it is the one who accepts millions of dollars from foreign
governments while he is President, and it is the one who sucks
up to dictators and despots all around the world, who cannot
even say that the democratic country of Ukraine should win the
war against Vladimir Putin.
So, this unfortunately, while an important topic, is a
waste of time as we sit 6 weeks before the election, and as
usual, we could have been doing so many better things with our
time. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Biggs from
Arizona.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, panelists,
for being here. I appreciate your testimony. It has been
insightful. I have read all of your statements, and one way or
another, each of you has either directly mentioned or alluded
to elite capture. And I just want to ask, and I will start with
you, Dr. Atkinson, what kind of elites are being captured? Who
does the CCP target?
Dr. Atkinson. All. Pretty much all the elites, they try.
Mr. Biggs. So, they would like to trap politicians. They
would like to snare university professors, researchers. They
would like to get media.
Dr. Atkinson. Think tanks.
Mr. Biggs. Think tanks. They would like to get control of
these folks. I have an interesting one. I thought it was
interesting because it was by the New York Times, and it talks
about the capture of a special interest group called Code Pink,
which, in 2015, they condemned China, supported the Uyghurs. By
the time 2022 rolls around, Code Pink now is being funded
through a CCP cutout, and now it is the Uyghurs who are
terrorists, and they are threatening to disrupt the CCP. Would
that be an example of elite capture that CCP would pursue?
Dr. Atkinson. I am not familiar with that case. I have read
about it, but yes, absolutely, that would be a good example, if
that were the case.
Mr. Biggs. So, I will ask some other questions here. Now,
Dr. Thayer, in one of your books--I am going to dovetail on
this here--are there specific departments or offices within
Federal agencies that are particularly vulnerable to CCP
influence or neglecting the seriousness of the threat?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. And why do you think these departments are
susceptible, and can you name some of those departments?
Dr. Thayer. Well, as a rule of thumb, all departments and
agencies are going to be vulnerable to the capture. Clearly,
the CCP would be putting priority on national security
departments and agencies, but it is a problem which is endemic
to the Federal Government, state, local, tribal, and
territorial governments.
Mr. Biggs. And I meant to ask you, Ambassador Cella, about
the Gotion case because in your opening statement and in your
written remarks, you talk about what I would call classic
mechanisms to capture elite. Would you expand on that, please?
Mr. Cella. Textbook. I engaged with my former Ambassadorial
colleague, Peter Hoekstra, former congressional colleague of
yours, in this endeavor. And from the outset, Congressman, the
intertwining of this PRC-based and CCP company, the CEO, Zhen
Li, and his son are both members of the Chinese People's
Consultant of Congress, the policy advising body for the
Chinese Communist Party, United Front Work Group. They have a
Thousand Talent station in their office in California that
vacuums up people, intel, intellectual property, by its nature.
So, they intertwined early working government elites, business
elites, economic development organizations, and requiring them
to sign the binding and punitive 5- and 10-year nondisclosure
agreements, again, radically contrary to the published memo
from the NCSC of July 2022 that require them to do just the
opposite, and it is skirted by those Federal agencies that----
Mr. Biggs. CFIUS.
Mr. Cella. Correct.
Mr. Biggs [continuing]. Treasury, CFIUS.
Mr. Cella. Yes, sir.
Mr. Biggs. So, we have talked about elite capture a little
bit here. All of you mentioned somewhere or another this is not
unlike or dissimilar from the post-World War II cold war
competition, adversarial relationship we had with the former
Soviet Union, but it is really distinctive. And, Dr. Atkinson,
you pointed out in one way earlier, and that is, there is an
economic integration, right? There is an economic integration
between China and the U.S. today. So, if we were to actually
treat China, in particular because of the CCP, as the
geopolitical adversary it really is, my question is for all of
the panelists, how do you disaggregate or decouple our
relationship? Specifically, I am going to mention critical
minerals, which we are dependent on. Our supply chain is
dependent upon China, and if you want Green New Deal EV stuff,
you have got to have the critical minerals that we do not allow
to have developed here. And so, with that, I am going to ask
all of you to respond. We will start with Dr. Thayer and go on
down the line.
Dr. Thayer. OK. Thank you very much, indeed, for the
question, Congressman Biggs. What needs to be done is to change
the paradigm, to change the way that we think about China,
right, and recognize that the CCP is in control of it. It is a
malign force which is targeting us for destruction, and act
accordingly. So, we need to move from an engagement paradigm,
if you will, to one which is a realistic paradigm, recognizing
the nature of the geostrategic threat that we face. With
respect to critical minerals, of course that is absolutely
essential. It is a major vulnerability that we pose, as we have
discussed earlier, and ensuring that our supply chains are not
affected by that, as well as how those minerals would feed
into, of course, the defense industrial base and other critical
technologies. It should be one of the top priorities that we
have.
Dr. Atkinson. So, as a think tank, we have been focused on
the China challenge since 2008 and I would challenge anybody to
suggest that we are weak on China. But what I will say is, I
worry sometimes about the complete decoupling argument. We
should be selling Starbucks in China. I mean, what difference
does it make? We should be taking as much money out of the
Chinese economy as possible. So, for example, the decision to
cutoff Intel sales and Qualcomm sales to Huawei of chips was a
mistake because Huawei got those chips on their own, and all we
did is weaken a company who is already in trouble, which is
Intel. So, I think what we need to do is we need to make sure
that we decouple on the most critical parts.
And in terms of rare earth minerals, there are really two
parts of that answer. One is we need a regulatory system that
allows it to be built, but the second and most fundamental is
we need a tariff floor because what the Chinese do is they do
predatory pricing. As soon as somebody wants to get in the
market, they undercut the price, drive them out of business,
and everybody knows that is the deal. So, if we set a tariff
floor that says, you cannot sell this below a cost and we get
our Canadian and Australian allies with us, then we build the
security for companies to be able to invest in rare earth.
Absent that, I do not see it changing very much.
Mr. Cella. You may have seen, Congressman, Deputy Secretary
of State, Kurt Campbell, the other day say, frankly, the cold
war pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that
China presents. So, I think you take his words, and you look at
our foot posture, and it is not commensurate with the threat.
So, I really think, under the umbrella of a more modernized
version of the National Security Act of 1947 that engages the
China threat head-on, is vital, and it will work within the
intergovernmental agency.
Mr. Stokes. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I
think, as we consider decoupling, we have to think about the
overall strategy. Obviously, we got to start with security
areas that relate directly to security and military affairs.
And then I think we should move kind of to the next layer of
strategic industries, the places that are going to command the
Fourth Industrial Revolution, and what is the U.S. position
vis-a-vis China and indeed the rest of the world there. And
then I think a third pillar of this strategy is about, you
know, again, as we think often of these U.S. China terms, we
should think about how do we expand our trade ties with the
rest of the world, to put ourselves in a more competitive
position, but also make ourselves less reliant on China and
more resilient in the face of the challenge.
Chairman Comer. The gentlemen time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes Mr. Connolly from Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to the
panel.
Mr. Atkinson, I was intrigued by your testimony because
several parts of it really resonate with my own view about how
we engage with China and how we respond to China, and I guess,
the bottom line for me is always operate from strength, never
from weakness. And I fear that Presidents of both parties, for
a long, long time, we turned a blind eye to Chinese behavior,
especially intellectual theft, which has allowed them to
leapfrog technological milestones at our expense and our
subsidies in terms of R&D. Why do you think the United States,
frankly, and to both parties, for a long time turned a blind
eye to Chinese behavior?
And just parenthetically, in 2008-2009, when I first came
here, we had a listening session to a number of industries,
including software industry, Microsoft, in the state of
Washington. But we heard everything from software to candy
manufacturers about absolute, blatant theft, even stealing the
candy maker's candy box design. I mean, it is that bad, and
nothing happened. The U.S. Government did nothing, and that was
under the Bush Administration. I do not know that the
subsequent administrations got any better. I think Trump got
tough, and I think this Administration showed some serious
responses. But why did we allow, such a long period of time,
blatant Chinese intellectual theft and other behaviors that are
malign and clearly hindered our interest?
Dr. Atkinson. Well, Congressman, that is absolutely right,
the famous case where Huawei stole the Cisco code, and they
included an error in the code in their own system. So, what
happened? Not very much. There was a gentleman who wrote an op-
ed in the Washington Post about 10 years ago or whatever, and
he said we should not worry about Chinese intellectual property
theft, that is just going to make us innovate more, and that
has been the elite view. The elite view has been we are so much
better than them, our innovation system is superior to theirs,
and we finally have to wake up and say, wait a minute. When you
are stealing intellectual property, when your R&D expenses can
be this much because you are getting everything for free, you
are facing an intense, robust competitor. So, we just have to
wake up. The second big problem we have is that if----
Mr. Connolly. By the way, I am sorry to interrupt, but I
mean, the test of that point of view is, and how did that work
out for us? Are they weaker today or stronger, or we had a less
competitive advantage than we were back then?
Dr. Atkinson. We are much, much worse on.
Mr. Connolly. Right.
Dr. Atkinson. Much worse on. I would add one other
component of that, and that is, we have a law on the books from
1930 and it is a program called Section 337 at the U.S.
International Trade Commission. And what Section 337 allows is
somebody to bring a case against a Chinese company or any
company, but particularly China, that steals our intellectual
property. And if you win the case, you get a 10-year exclusion
order against everything the Chinese company makes. U.S.
companies have lost those cases because the judge rules, yes,
they have stolen your intellectual property, but they have not
reduced your market because we have a provision in U.S. trade
law, which, if I were God, I would erase it tomorrow, which
says, you have to show harm.
The problem is, the Chinese go into these markets where
that is growing. They take all the market share, and the
existing companies, let us just say their sales are a million,
they keep being a million. Under U.S. trade law, that American
company cannot win that case, and there was a case that I can
share with you where that was added. So, Congress needs to just
change that law. That is an antiquated law. You should not have
to require the showing of loss of sales. You just should show
intellectual property theft and they are coming after you.
Mr. Connolly. Yes. I guess, final question, if I may. There
are various sources and observers who believe that we sometimes
overstate the Chinese threat to the United States, militarily,
economically. After all they have got their own economic
problems. They have got a population infertility decline that
could be quite dramatic. What is your view about that?
Dr. Atkinson. It is a critical mistake to make. Look, their
labor productivity will exceed ours by at least double for the
next 30 or 40 years, so that alone means the Chinese economy is
going to grow significantly faster than the U.S. economy. Their
so-called decline in population, they have 1.3 billion people,
all right? So, they get down to a billion in 30, 40 years, or
50 years, that is a billion people that we have to face.
And then on top of that, we have to remember the challenge
is not about the Chinese GDP per se. China does not care about
its GDP. What they care about is winning in advanced
industries. They care about dominating quantum computing. They
care about dominating space technology. They care about
dominating biotechnology. We just finished up a study at ITI,
an 18-month study looking at Chinese innovation capabilities in
10 industries. Two of them, they are ahead of us. The six of
them, they were making rapid progress, and we estimated they
would overtake us within a decade. So, we cannot underestimate
their capabilities. They are very, very strong.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much. I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs.
Mr. Biggs. For unanimous consent, please, I admit the
following articles: A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to
a U.S. Tech Mogul;'' ``Exclusive: Alleged Chinese Spy Spent
Years Rubbing Elbows with Dem Congresswoman;'' ``Indictment of
Governor Hochul's Aide Shows Red China is Number One Threat;''
``Bombshell Indictment: Top New York Democrat Aide to Andrew
Cuomo, Kathy Hochul, Worked as Agent of Influence for China and
Communist Party;'' ``DoJ charges Alleged Chinese Agent Was
Spying in U.S.;'' FBI Finds Chinese State Hacker Malware and
Hundreds of U.S. Infrastructure-Related Routers;'' ``Joe Biden
Calls U.S. Allies, India, and Japan Xenophobic;'' ``Trump Calls
Chinese Leader 'a Killer,' but Rejects Olympics Boycott,'' and
``Firebrand Leftist, Jamie Raskin, said Congress Must
Disqualify Trump; Predicted Civil War Conditions.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes the ranking member.
Mr. Raskin. Two unanimous consent requests. One is the
Biden-Harris Administration's October 2022 National Security
Strategy, and second is a letter to you, Mr. Chairman, from the
White House, dated September 9, 2024, describing the
Administration's strategy to fight China, including investing
in our strength, aligning with partners, managing competition,
and protecting democratic values and institutions.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Chairman
Sessions, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I want to
follow up on the interesting dialog that my friend and
gentleman from Virginia did, and that was, good gosh, can we
catch on? Can we catch on that the Chinese are here? They are
not just competitors. They are for our demise. We were told
years and years ago they wanted to be a part of the world
market, they would respect intellectual property, rule of law,
tariffs, they would do all of these things, and I think there
is more than enough evidence to suggest they do not do that.
The gentleman from Virginia, insightfully, and I agree with
him, well, what did we do about these things that happened that
we were aware of?
Mr. Atkinson, the Homeland Security in January 2021 put out
a document that was entitled, ``DHS Strategic Action Plan to
Counter the Threat Posed by the People's Republic of China.'' I
should have gotten each of you a copy of this, and I will make
sure that happens, but before that, I will see if I can coach
you along. Well into, I think, page 11, continuing to protect
the homeland, border security and immigration, ensure the
effective removal of PRC nationals from the United States. At
present, January 21, 40,800 PRC nationals in the United States
are subject to final orders of removal. Well, we are accused of
making this politicized, but the bottom line is, the gentleman
from Virginia and I are pretty close on the same page. What are
we doing about the threat? Mr. Atkinson, what would you, say,
ensure the effective removal of, back in 2021, 40,000 nationals
that were subject to final orders of removal?
Dr. Atkinson. Well, again, Congressman, with the caveat
being I do not know that case. If that is the case, I do not
see any reason why we would allow them to continue to be in our
country.
Mr. Sessions. OK. How about the some 16,000, as I
understand it, may be the last count I saw, Chinese that came
here over some short period of time that wandered across our
Southern border. Would you call that politics, or would you
call that good common sense that you would like to know who
they are and remove them since they did not follow a legal
process?
Dr. Atkinson. So, I do not want to comment on immigration
policy per se, but I do think it is critical to understand who
they are. They are different. Look, back in the Soviet Russia
days, if somebody was Russian, that raised the question, it is
obvious. If somebody was French, we did not raise the same
question. So, I do think having somebody coming into the
country from China is in a different category.
Mr. Sessions. So, I am trying to really go to where the
gentleman from Virginia was. What are we doing to counter the
threat that we already know that the PRC has already openly
said what they are attempting to manipulate, and do we just let
this go on? Ambassador, do you have a thought on this?
Mr. Cella. No, we do not let it go on, sir. I think we have
to operate eyes wide open. I think there has been a great deal
of naivete over a long period of time. I mean, you could say
did it begin with Nixon's opening up to China, and then from
there, I think there is----
Mr. Sessions. Yes, but they changed their mind. They lied.
Mr. Cella. Well, so, but there has been complacency, I
think, profit making. I think we have been anesthetized. I
think Wall Street is engaged, but I think we really need to be
nimble, informed, and educated, whole of society, whole of
government, and commensurate with the threat. You look at the
2018-2019 National Intelligence Law, the 2015 National Security
Law, it requires, as directed, PRC nationals, whether they are
in the PRC or anywhere around the world, to surveil, collect,
and report as directed or voluntarily, and sometimes they are
paid for it. So, why we do not have our footing correspondingly
is outrageous.
Mr. Sessions. Well, I think that these are things that we
can find common ground to work on. I think the distinguished
gentleman from Virginia should be concerned, but I think every
person on this Committee should and look at this as an
important hearing to ask professionals, not just us, what they
think. And I think all four of you have been able to present
yourself in such a way that the case is we have a problem, and
we better get ourself together, and part of that means we
better protect the American people, not just American
intellectual property. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. Very good
questions, Mr. Sessions and Mr. Connolly, and that is what we
want to do here. We want to identify the problem and try to
come up with a bipartisan solution. The Chair recognizes Mr.
Moskowitz.
Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with Mr.
Sessions. I think the threat of China is real. That is why I
voted for the China Select Committee, and I would also like to
come up with bipartisan solutions, but unfortunately, that is
not what the Chairman is doing with this issue. Tim Walz was
announced as the vice-Presidential candidate, and immediately
the Chairman opens up an investigation into the Vice President.
In fact, the Chairman goes on to say, ``China has a vice-
Presidential candidate who has gone on record praising the
country,'' as one of his rationales for opening this
investigation and sending letters to the FBI. It does not sound
bipartisan trying to get to the root of the China issue.
But of course, you know, as we are doing that, you know, I
will do, just to remind the Chairman, just a quick spirited
reading of some of the things that President Trump has said:
``China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus.
The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and
transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on
behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi.''
Trump again: ``I just spoke to President Xi last night, and you
all know he is working on the problem, the virus. It is a very
tough situation, but I think he is going to handle it. I think
he handled it really well. We are helping where we can.''
Another Trump quote: ``Just had a very long conversation
with President Xi on the phone. He is strong, sharp, powerful,
focused on leading the counterattack on the coronavirus. He
feels they are doing very well, building hospitals in a matter
of days. Great discipline is taking place in China as President
Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation. We
are working closely with China to help.'' More Trump: ``I think
China is very, you know, professionally run in a sense, and
that they have everything under control. I really believe they
are going to have it under control very soon. You know, in
April supposedly it will die with hotter weather. That is a
beautiful date to look forward to, but China, I can tell you,
is working very hard.'' More Trump: ``We have very few people
with it and are getting better. They are all getting better.
The whole situation will work out. I think China has it really
shut down.''
And I bring all of that up because all of those things, all
of the praising of Xi, this is the rationale that the Chairman
has used to do other stuff. The Chairman went on Fox Business
with Maria Bartiromo and said, yes, the Walz family, that is a
scary family there, when he was talking about the Walz family.
If you look at Maria's face, it looked like she vomited, it
came up, and then she swallowed it again as the Chairman was
talking about that, OK? I am sure the American people think
Gwen Walz is really scary.
You know, the Chairman went on to say that, you know,
``Walz is very concerning to me because we don't want to set
our business model like China.'' Of course, Trump always has a
quote or a tweet for that. Trump said, ``Xi is now president
for life, right, and that that is great. And look, he was able
to do that and I think it is great. Maybe we will do the
same.'' Huh, that is interesting. That sounds like Trump
looking at the Chinese model and wanting to copy it, which is
what the Chairman said about Tim Walz.
So, I am just curious. Is the Chairman going to open up an
investigation into Donald Trump wanting to copy the Chinese
model, which is what he accused Tim Walz of? We know the
answer.
More Trump about President Xi: ``We love each other.'' And
so, knowing how this Committee has conducted investigations,
knowing the evidence that they have manufactured or the
witnesses they have had to deal with, the only evidence the
Chairman has on Tim Walz and China is that maybe he visited a
Panda Express once and he liked it. That is it. That is what is
going on here. So, I do not want to hear about bipartisanship
on China. We were there, and then the Chairman just goes all
over TV and wants to accuse the Walz family of basically being
spies for China with no evidence.
And look, I appreciate the kind words the Chairman said
about me on Newsmax the other day, calling me the court jester,
so thank you, my liege. I appreciate that. But he said
something else that I think really sums up what this Committee
has done. The Chairman went on and said, ``My job was never to
impeach.'' Well, that is interesting. So, for almost 2 years we
have sat here while we have run impeachment hearings, while we
have had cameras, hundreds of interviews, millions of dollars
to spend, and now the Chairman finally says, ``My job was never
to impeach.'' He only says that because it did not work out.
And so, you know, Mr. Chairman, I am going to have my staff
send this to your office. I would love for you to sign it. I am
going to hang it in my office as a reminder, OK, of what this
Committee was used for, OK? So, I do not want to hear about
bipartisanship when they destroyed this Committee over nonsense
for 2 years. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Burchett.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I come at this maybe
a little different background. My father fought in the Pacific
in the Second World War and then in the Marine Corps, 1st
Marine Division. Everybody has heard me tell these stories. But
after the war--he was on Okinawa and they were getting ready to
invade Japan, they thought, and they dropped the bomb on Japan,
both bombs. They were told they were going to go home and he
was not sent home. They sent some Marines over to China. And
Daddy was--I think one of the greatest regrets in his life
until the day he died was that he felt like we turned our back
on them, and he would talk about how, you know, during the war
they could literally move mountains if they had to. I mean, the
people would, you know. I guess it is the slave labor, I am not
sure, and they could literally move a factory from one area,
just take it apart piece by piece and then just carry it,
humans carrying it to another area, people dying.
And then after the war, the hunger really for democracy and
capitalism. Kids would stand on a street corner with a first-
grade primer and read something, and they would be stuck and
they would say, ``G.I., G.I., what is this word, what is this
word?'' and they would tell them, and they understood the value
of the American dollar. And I could tell you all these stories,
but I come at it from a little different angle because I see
the Chinese people as wonderful folks. I see their leadership
as some very abusive, horrible people. You know, the hundred-
year plan, the thousand-year plan, you know, to me it does not
really matter. Their folks are there and they are being abused
for their own purposes for their leadership.
But Dr. Thayer, you had written that the Trump
Administration was the start of an effective resistance to the
Chinese Communist Party. Could you explain to me how that is?
Dr. Thayer. Certainly. Thank you, Congressman Burchett, for
the question. The Trump Administration recognized the threat
that we faced from the Chinese Communist Party and that it had
been waging the world's most successful political warfare
campaign against the United States by making so many of the
American elite partners with the Chinese Communist Party. And
the Trump Administration was the first administration after,
obviously, post-cold war administrations, from Clinton through
Bush to Obama to Trump, that tried to turn the rudder over,
recognizing the nature of the threat, that it was the regime
that was the threat. It was the Chinese Communist Party that is
the threat to the United States because of its ideology. It is
not the Chinese people with whom we have common cause, and
people who have suffered greatly, horribly, with scores of
millions of individuals killed in China by the Chinese
Communist Party.
So, we both suffer the consequences of that odious regime,
and the Trump Administration recognized that and took measures
starting to turn the rudder over. There is much more work to be
done, Congressman, as you well know, as well as this Committee
knows, but that was a good start.
Mr. Burchett. Any of you all feel like the Biden-Harris
Administration implemented these same strategies?
Dr. Thayer. The Biden and Harris Administration has not
implemented the same strategies. They have gone back to a form
of what I call with my frequent co-author, Jim Fanell, a neo-
engagement policy, which is to continue sustained rates of
trade interaction, all the hallmarks that defined Clinton
through Obama, which is sustaining the CCP at a time where they
are incredibly weak, where they are suffering political crises
within the Chinese Communist Party due to the tyranny of Xi
Jinping. And they are suffering profound economic problems,
ultimately, due to the misrule of their communist economic
policies, but to the collapse of their real estate markets and
a series of structural as well as more immediate economic
problems that they face. They are supremely vulnerable. And now
is the time to take advantage in the sense of political warfare
against that regime.
Mr. Burchett. You all agree to that? Mr. Stokes?
Mr. Stokes. No. I think the Biden-Harris Administration has
shared the diagnosis of the challenge with the Trump
Administration but had a little bit of a different tack in
terms of responding to it. So, you know, I do not think it is
fair to call it neo-engagement. I would say it is still
strategic competition, right, and that there is more of an
emphasis on building up alliances and partnerships.
You have seen the progress with the Quad. You have seen
AUKUS. You have seen revival of alliances with the Philippines
and Japan and so on. On the technological side, you have seen
both affirmative efforts to improve, you know, the U.S. posture
in the CHIPS and Science Act, but also pretty extreme, at least
in Beijing's view, actions to slow down China's technological
rise really on chips and other areas as well, AI, biotech and
so on, and then a very, very strong and consistent stance on
human rights issues, particularly related to Uyghurs, Hong
Kong, and so on, and a deepened partnership with Taiwan.
So, I think that there is, you know, a certain amount of
bipartisan continuity here, and it is more about, you know,
what policies do we adopt to actually deal with this problem
now that we sort of agree on what the problem is?
Mr. Burchett. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I have run over. I will
just say that, economically, Americans, unfortunately, are
going to pay the cheapest they can get, and you just cannot get
better than slave labor that we are dealing with competing with
China, and that is unfortunate. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I ran
over.
Chairman Comer. Good questions. The Chair recognizes Mr.
Garcia from California.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
witnesses.
Clearly, China is our leading geopolitical challenge and a
complicated one because, obviously, they are also our largest
trading partner. And I think one thing that is bipartisan is no
one does not think that China is not our most strategic
challenge, and certainly, we all understand the gravity of
China and competition as it relates to our own economy and our
own national security interests. I know that we talked a lot
about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump today. I
believe that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have united our allies
against aggressive authoritarian states. But I also think it is
important, since we have talked so much about Trump and the
Trump era, to compare the Biden-Harris record with the Donald
Trump record as it relates to China.
[Poster]
Mr. Garcia. And of course, we here have a story by the
Washington Post--I am going to show a recent one as well--about
President Xi and China and John Bolton's claims, which I think
are very credible, that somehow Donald Trump is working and had
worked with President Xi to actually encourage election
interference.
Now, during a one-on-one meeting between President Xi and
Trump, Donald Trump asked to buy more soybeans and wheat to
help him actually win reelection, as John Bolton had noted and
the Washington Post reported. And, in fact, in that same
meeting, Trump actually said that Democrats were the party that
was actually tougher on China. Now, Mr. Stokes, does this sound
to you like Trump was pursuing some type of electoral gain and
putting it above the national security interest?
Mr. Stokes. I was not in the room, so I cannot speak to
what was or was not said. I think, in general, you know, we
should not have any hostile foreign states or any foreign
states interfering in U.S. elections, period, full stop, no
matter if they are supporting Democrats or Republicans.
Mr. Garcia. And if Donald Trump was encouraging election
interference, that would be, obviously, unethical and illegal
as far as I am concerned. But we know that Donald Trump has
also used the power of the presidency for his own political
gain before. Now, Mr. Stokes, can you remind us why President
Trump was actually impeached the very first time he was
impeached?
Mr. Stokes. This is not my area of expertise, but
presumably Russia's influence in the election.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you. And it is also true, if we remember,
that Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, received $2
billion from Saudi Arabia for his investment fund after leaving
the White House, just 2 months after leaving the White House.
And these allegations of foreign interference of Donald Trump,
his relationship with China, I think should be very concerning.
Now, I want to show you this photo right here.
[Slide]
Mr. Garcia. There have been recent reports, again, in the
Washington Post--and Ranking Member Raskin and I have asked
actually for an investigation into allegations--that the
Egyptian Government may have sent $10 million in campaign
contributions to Donald Trump in the closing days of the Trump
campaign. And this raises serious questions, of course, about
what Donald Trump has done, whether it has been his meetings
with President Xi, whether it has been his conversations with
the Egyptian president, and others, of which he was impeached
for the first time as to why he is trying to gain favors around
elections. Donald Trump, of course, is resisting this
investigation, but, Mr. Stokes, do you think that the American
people should be concerned about potential quid pro quos?
Mr. Stokes. Yes, from any Presidential candidate or a
former President.
Mr. Garcia. Absolutely, and I want to talk about one other.
We know that President Donald Trump also received at least $7.8
million from at least 20 foreign states and authoritarian
leaders, including China, of which we are talking about today,
in blatant violation of the constitution. And I think it is
important to remember that that $7.8 million is just the
minimum that we know about because we have a very limited
number of the actual receipts of money that was going into the
Trump Organization, including money that was coming in directly
from China. So, as we are talking about the Chinese Government
and the Chinese influence, we have to ensure that we note the
influence that China and other foreign actors were having on
Donald Trump. So, with that, I am going to yield back and
remind us that that is the investigation that we should be
having.
Mr. Raskin. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Garcia. Yes.
Mr. Raskin. But I just wonder, Dr. Thayer, you have made a
very strong argument that the Trump Administration confronted
China, and yet there is all of this evidence that Donald Trump
and his businesses were pocketing millions of dollars from the
Chinese Government, the dozens of trademarks that went to his
daughter, his lavish praise of President Xi. And I just wonder
how you reconcile that in your mind. Is there any cognitive
dissonance there, or are you saying that the Administration did
one thing and then the President was sort of a loose cannon,
off doing his own?
Dr. Thayer. Well, Ranking Member Raskin, thank you for the
comment. My thoughts are these. First, the threat from the
Chinese Communist Party should be a nonpartisan issue in that
the CCP is killing Americans every day. Over last year, the CDC
said 107,000 Americans were killed by fentanyl overdoses,
precursor chemicals being----
Mr. Raskin. I got you. I guess my question is about elite
capture.
Chairman Comer. And the gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Raskin. Yes. I mean, was the elite capture strategy
targeted at Donald Trump, but you are saying his Administration
somehow survived it.
Chairman Comer. I do not know that that is what he said,
but the gentleman's time has expired. The Chair recognizes Ms.
McClain from Michigan.
Mrs. McClain. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The CCP is clearly not
our friend. Let me repeat: the Chinese Communist Party is not
our friend. It is well known that if you are a Chinese company,
you must turn over all of your requested information to the
CCP. Lawmakers from my state of Michigan have approved nearly
$800 million in taxpayer dollars to incentivize the
construction of the Gotion plant. Gotion, Inc. is a subsidiary
company of Gotion High-Tech, which is a state-owned company of
the Chinese Communist Party. State lawmakers are using taxpayer
dollars to pay the CCP to implant thousands of Chinese workers
and billions worth of Chinese technology strategically close to
an intelligence program and a military facility. Coincidence? I
think not. In the past several years, the U.S. has found
Chinese technology to be a CCP tool used to spy on Americans,
undermine our interests, and steal proprietary information from
our intellectual leaders. Anyone who is looking can see that
this is a very troubling pattern.
So, Ambassador Cella, FBI Director Chris Wray has warned
that colleges and universities are prone to political warfare
from China and targeted for intellectual property theft. Now,
Ferris State University is just a few miles from the proposed
Gotionsite. Again, coincidence? Not much. Have you heard of any
collaboration between Ferris State and the Gotion plant?
Mr. Cella. I have, Congresswoman McClain. Thank you for the
question. So, the previous president of Ferris State began sort
of intertwining with Gotion leaders and executives as they set
the stage to make their way into Michigan. And apparently,
there was a soft agreement where they would house workers, PRC
nationals, unvetted, and his regime changed. It came to a new
one. So, there was talk of that. And there were also
conversations that are known that Gotion had concept
conversations with the university to support various elements
of building. I do not know if it ever came to pass, but, again,
I think that would just highlight another element of what has
all the textbook markings of an influence operation.
Mrs. McClain. I would agree, and I just want to make sure
you said ``unvetted.''
Mr. Cella. Yes. So, I would just say that if you look at
the backdrop of the 2018-2019 National Intelligence Law of
China, the 2015 National Security Law, this is just the law
that they have to follow whether they are in China or around
the world to surveil, collect, and report. So, I just think
that as it now stands, our apparatus, our preparedness is not
commensurate with that threat. That is why I shared with some
of your other colleagues perhaps a more footed and a more
nimble approach would begin with passing a more modern version
of the National Security Act of 1947 that engages the China
threat.
Mrs. McClain. Thank you. It is widely known that
stakeholders and other supporters of the deal, so to speak,
with the Gotion, signed a nondisclosure, so signed non-
disclosure agreements. This, in my opinion, is a huge red flag
for our national security and intelligence agencies when it
comes to dealing with a company with deep ties to the CCP. Why
would elected and appointed officials sign a 5- to 10-year NDA
regarding Gotion? Is that not a red flag? It seems a little
weird to me.
Mr. Cella. It is a big red flag. And in February 2022, I
had mentioned to some of your other colleagues, national
security and intelligence agencies convened state and local
elected officials on a bipartisan basis and business leaders to
say, look, China is on the hunt. You better have your dukes up.
Do not be duped by seemingly benign business deals because if
you do not follow directives of strict scrutiny, transparency,
which NDAs are not, our national security is jeopardized.
Mrs. McClain. What is the issue with being transparent?
Mr. Cella. Well, I think that by being transparent, much of
what has gone on that is now in the court filings that we
mentioned with Gotion would be known in terms of elite capture,
influence operations, what appears to be corruption and
enrichment. Books have never been opened over the course of
this deal. They ought to be, and they are really, I think,
emanating from a retrenching of National Security Act of 1947,
in a modern sense, would get us there.
Mrs. McClain. Thank you. I am just going to remind everyone
again, this is going on under our noses within our state, and I
am gravely concerned. It is next to a military facility, and it
is right next to Ferris State with NDAs, and everything is
under the cloak of darkness, very concerning for me and the
people of the state of Michigan. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yield back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Crockett from Texas.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I am going to
take a little bit of a different approach to this. You know,
interestingly enough, I will say that our position on China
should be one of bipartisanship. I will absolutely say that,
and we do not find very much bipartisanship specifically in
this Committee. I think some of the concerns that I have,
though, is just about the fact that we are not speaking more
holistically. Let me explain to you kind of what I mean by
that.
One of the things that has been brought up has been
fentanyl, and I appreciate the conversation around fentanyl
because for so long in this Committee, it has been put out
there to the American people that fentanyl is only coming from
the Southern border and the only reason we have a crisis is
because of the Southern border, when the reality is that China
is playing a huge role as it relates to the fentanyl crisis,
and so we have got to approach any of these crises more
holistically. And the reason that I have a problem with this
particular hearing, like some of my colleagues have already
stated, is that we are not really talking about the bigger
picture. The bigger picture is that it is not China as an
isolated bad actor.
What is really making and exacerbating this issue is the
fact that China is teaming up with Russia, who is also teaming
up with Iran. Is there anyone that disagrees that these three
have actually started to work in concert together and it is all
for the harm of us?
[No response.]
Ms. Crockett. By your silence, I will say that you agree
with me. And so, I think that we need to be honest with the
American people and talk about the dynamic of this threat and
that it is a lot larger, and that is actually what makes it
even scarier. And it is why we do need someone that will lead
this Nation and will not just call out one bad actor, but call
them all out because they are definitely working together.
As it has already been pointed out, not being able to say
that we want Ukraine to defeat Russia, it is a very simple
thing, but it means a lot. In addition to that, there is one
portion of this world that I have traveled to most since I have
been in Congress, and that is the Indo-Pacific area. And to go
into places like Taiwan and to listen to what people in Taiwan,
what people in Thailand, what people in Indonesia, what they
are all experiencing as it relates to the CCP, it, like, hurts
my heart.
And so, I do want to come up with solutions because a lot
of times when I am listening to this, I am wondering if they
are talking about mobsters or what because that is how bad it
sounds when they are dropping off these bags of money, and then
the next thing you know, it is like they own these people. Yet
we know that there is a lack of security, and we have to do our
part in America to make sure that we are helping out these
modern-day democracies. But also, we have got to be smart about
our policies, right? Like, our trade policies have to be smart
and they have to keep up. And we also have to make sure that we
are protecting those here in our country whether we are talking
about from military attacks or whether we are talking about
interfering with our elections or whether we are talking about
literally our economy, and China somehow has their hands in all
three of these spaces.
So, one of the issues that has not been talked about a lot
is the tariffs and the tariffs that have been proposed by
Donald Trump if he becomes President of the United States
again, and how those tariffs specifically have impacted our
farmers. Mr. Stokes, are you aware of the impact that the
tariffs that were imposed during the previous Trump
Administration how that impacted our farmers?
Mr. Stokes. Well, I think, broadly speaking, the tariffs,
on the one hand, are meant to be a tool to combat unfair trade
practices by China, but on the other hand, they impose costs on
consumers in the United States. So, in many ways, we have got
to kind of strike a balance because we have not been able to
deal with unfair trade practices from China effectively and
this has been one of our most effective tools, but it does come
at a cost for middle class people. And so, we have got to
strike a balance there, and that is, in general, how I would
approach the tariff issue.
Ms. Crockett. That is absolutely right, and more
specifically, when we went through this before because doing
the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity if
we are expecting a different result. Farmers who exported
soybeans, cotton, and sorghum to China were hit by Beijing's
decision to raise tariffs on those products as much as 25
percent. Even despite Trump's attempt to mitigate his colossal
failure by providing offsets and financial support for farmers,
giving $23 billion in 2018 and 2019, he failed to distribute
the support evenly to farmers, to say nothing that the support
only partially mitigated the harm caused by these tariffs. And
what is being proposed now is Trump is proposing a worldwide
tariff of 10 percent and 60 percent on Chinese goods, which
would lower the average after-tax incomes of U.S. households in
2025 by $1,800 and reduce imports to the U.S. by $5.5 trillion
or 15 percent.
The thing is, I want us to come up with policies, and I am
charging and requesting each of you as you sit here, and you
have studied this, to talk about this in a very holistic
mindset and give us some actual proposals that you believe
would be bipartisan, where we can definitely deal with not just
China, but Iran, as well as Russia, as they are working as a
collective to harm us. Thank you so much for your time, and I
will yield.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Burlison from
Missouri.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Thayer, are you
familiar with an individual named Neville Roy Singham?
Dr. Thayer. No, Congressman, I am not.
Mr. Burlison. Mr. Atkinson?
Dr. Atkinson. No, sir.
Mr. Burlison. Mr. Cella?
Mr. Cella. I am not, sir.
Mr. Burlison. Mr. Stokes?
Mr. Stokes. No, sir.
Mr. Burlison. OK. So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit
for the record an article from the New York Times titled, ``A
Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Burlison. So, Mr. Singham is an individual, a former,
as was mentioned, tech mogul. According to these articles, he
has been financing groups like the group that is protesting
outside this door, Code Pink. In fact, he is married to the
individual who co-founded this organization. He has also been a
contributor to many left-leaning Democrats, including Members
of this Committee, so certainly Members in this Committee know
who he is. But the question is, what is his involvement with
China? Because so much of his philanthropy is funding groups
that are sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party.
And so, this is of concern. You would think that it would
not result in anything. And yet, as this Times article points
out, in fact, when the Committee on China was formed in the
House, several of those Members that received contributions
protested the creation, in fact, rallied votes against the
creation of that Committee. There are other items that are
listed in the article, and I would encourage you guys to read
that. To me, this is an example of elite capture, OK?
So, Mr. Thayer, let us talk about the history of the
current Governor, Tim Walz, and his connections with China. It
is estimated that he has been to China and organized trips up
to 30 times, and then he no longer started doing those trips.
Then he became a member of a group while he was a Member of
Congress called the Macao Polytechnic University, which is a
Chinese institution that characterizes itself as having a long-
held devotion to and love for the motherland. Mr. Thayer, are
you aware of his interactions with China?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, Congressman Burlison. Those incidences and
his corporation, which was in existence in the 1990's and into
the 21st century, the business that ran, essentially,
educational exchange and brought American students to the
peninsula.
Mr. Burlison. For over 10 years.
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burlison. For over 10 years, he made numerous trips and
organized numerous trips that were funded.
My real concern is his connection to this organization, the
Macao Polytechnic University. Can you describe that?
Dr. Thayer. I believe, if I am not mistaken, Congressman
Burlison, that he was a researcher there or a fellow at that
institution in Macau.
Mr. Burlison. One might think there has been a pivot in the
United States, but certainly by the time the Trump
Administration had taken office, the Trump Administration
started sending warnings to universities about the Confucius
Institutes and their involvement, and many universities pulled
those from their campuses. But strangely, the universities in
Mr. Walz's state while he is governor are uniquely still having
the Confucius Institutes. Are you familiar with that?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burlison. Could you elaborate on why that is a concern?
Dr. Thayer. Certainly. Well, Confucius Institute is an
aspect of political warfare. It is an institution which
purports to tout the greatness of Chinese civilization, but it
really is advancing the agenda of the Chinese Communist Party.
My concern with respect to the businesses is that he would have
to have a Chinese partner, at least one partner or maybe
multiple partners in the People's Republic of China, and would
have to receive permission at the local level, provincial
level, and at the central level to conduct business. And that
certainly would involve contacts with the MSS, so with the
Chinese Intelligence Service, and with the Chinese Communist
Party, in order to conduct that business. To my knowledge, we
do not have information about his Chinese partner or Chinese
partners there. Additionally, of course, for MSS intelligence
collections, having students come over, of course, allows MSS
to have access to those individuals, which may provide a
benefit for their intelligence collection in the future.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. My time has expired.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
recognizes the Ranking Member.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you kindly, just for a UC request. The
first is an article from the Washington Post dated August 7 of
this year. It is entitled, ``Walz Has a Long History With
China, But He is s Not Pro-China.'' The second is from the
Post, dated August 8, 2024, entitled, ``Walz's Deep China
Experience is Good for the Country.'' Both articles conclude
Walz's deep knowledge relating to China are an asset and not a
liability.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questions and
just to go around the panel real quick. I have a few questions.
I am going to give you plenty of time to answer my last
question.
Everyone on the panel has already testified and agrees that
the CCP is a huge threat to America and a huge threat to our
government. Does anyone disagree that as we speak, the Chinese
Communist Party is trying to infiltrate our government, various
government agencies, and our political system in general? Now,
I am going to ask each one of you ``yes'' or ``no,'', and then
we will go into more in-depth questions, but is the average
government agency aware of the threat the CCP poses? I mean, in
other words, does anyone have confidence that the government
agencies here in Washington, DC. are aware of the threat? We
are not even talking about do they have a plan to combat
Chinese infiltration, but do you believe the government
agencies are aware, Dr. Thayer?
Dr. Thayer. Thank you, Chairman Comer. Not sufficiently,
sir.
Chairman Comer. Mr. Atkinson?
Dr. Atkinson. Overall, I do not believe they are.
Chairman Comer. Ambassador?
Mr. Cella. Our response is woefully not commensurate with
the current threat.
Chairman Comer. Mr. Stokes?
Mr. Stokes. I think the foreign and security-focused
agencies, our intelligence agencies in particular, are very
aware. I think the more domestically focused agencies, given
that the threat is outside their domain, it might be less.
Chairman Comer. OK. All right. Thank you. Ambassador Cella,
has the CCP used political and economic warfare to weaponize
the obsession with green energy?
Mr. Cella. We need not look any further than Michigan. So,
we have talked about Gotion. Your colleagues have raised the
Gotion matter and, again, as a textbook influence operation,
subnational coercion. The one project that it did not talk
about that is also present is a joint project with Ford CATL
that left Virginia after Governor Youngkin said is a national
security threat, ended up on our shores. So, malign things are
affiliated with both of these. You have three congressional
committees looking at the CATL deal for a reason, because it is
a threat.
Chairman Comer. I am concerned about the Green Deal
specifically because I believe that this would give China a
much greater competitive advantage, and I believe that China
has fueled a lot of the discussion about the Green New Deal.
What should Federal agencies do to address this problem?
Mr. Cella. In my humble opinion, I would just say, we need
not look any further than, I think, Germany, who, I think, got
way out over their skis with green technology, integrating with
the EVs, and I think it is perilous for the United States to
get on that same track. Michigan is the automobile capital of
the world, and I think they are on a perilous track by heading
where they are. Toyota, I think, struck the right balance
between hybrids and conventional internal combustion engines,
but we really need to be aware of this technology and mindful
of the malignness of China.
Chairman Comer. OK. And I am going to ask, for time's sake,
Dr. Thayer, Mr. Atkinson, and Ambassador Cella, if you could
convince Federal agencies to do one thing to secure Americans
from the cold war that CCP is waging, what would it be? Dr.
Thayer?
Dr. Thayer. Work with Congress and the executive to
formulate a strategy of victory over the CCP.
Chairman Comer. Mr. Atkinson?
Dr. Atkinson. I think each agency needs to develop an
internal plan and strategy and implementation of how they would
see the CCP threat, vis-a-vis the areas that they cover as an
agency.
Chairman Comer. Ambassador?
Mr. Cella. I think the footing of the National Security Act
of 1947 modernized so these agencies are working with you, and
what that would look like, it would involve a top-to-bottom
assessment and then adjust accordingly, plugging the gaping
holes that exist.
Chairman Comer. OK. Mr. Atkinson, you have expressed
concerns that America's technology powerhouses have allowed
themselves to become increasingly dependent on China for
manufacturing various components and ending in a vulnerable
Taiwan. We all know about the semiconductors and all of that.
Could you explain why this happened and what Federal agencies
need to do to solve this issue, our dependence on China and
Taiwan for so much of our technology, if not all of our
technology?
Dr. Atkinson. Well, first of all, we failed for many
decades to put in place an effective techno-economic policy. I
will give you an example. President Reagan was the big
cheerleader of putting in place a research and development tax
credit, as was every administration.
Chairman Comer. Uh-huh.
Dr. Atkinson. In the Clinton Administration, we had the
most generous R&D tax credit in the world. Now, the Chinese R&D
tax credit is 3.75 times bigger than ours, so we need to just
do simple things like use the Tax Code to drive more innovation
and investment. But the other part of that is we have had a
long history of where Federal agencies have turned a blind eye.
For example, as we speak, the National Science Foundation has a
joint quantum computing research program with the Chinese. We
gave away our most advanced nuclear technology.
Chairman Comer. Uh-huh.
Dr. Atkinson. Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We had a
Chinese delegation there in the 2000's, and they were there for
over 6 months and we just did not care. And so, it is time to
raise that level of awareness much, much higher.
Chairman Comer. Very good, very good. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Perry from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Perry. I thank the Chairman. Gentlemen, great to see
you. Dr. Thayer and Mr. Atkinson, I do not hold a lot of hope
for Congress to do sweeping things in this arena for a lot of
different reasons. Unfortunately, I think it is going to take
unilateral action, which then Congress can follow by any
President from any party. And let us start with the fact that,
I think, and if you will confirm this, that many Americans in
investment are funding our own demise through investments in
China, and China operates under a different set of rules in our
financial markets than our own United States companies do. Can
you confirm that assertion, No. 1, and, No. 2, what would be
the answer that an administration could take unilaterally while
Congress continues to ponder the implications?
Dr. Thayer. Congressman Perry, thank you for the question.
Sir, it is correct, that is the case, and the solution to that
would be to demand and require transparency from Chinese
entities operating within the United States. U.S. firms and
Chinese firms should play by the same rules.
Mr. Perry. Go ahead, Mr. Atkinson.
Dr. Atkinson. Well, Congressman, I agree with you that,
ultimately, this is going to have to come from an
administration because there is so much complexity, but, for
example, we could delist Chinese firms from our equity market
because of lack of transparency. I believe the SEC has the
ability to do that now, and they have chosen not to.
Mr. Perry. So, they have the unilateral ability, but choose
not to. And just out of curiosity, other than what the founders
described that the avarice of man, right, greed, what other
reason would they have to not do that to protect America? Why
wouldn't they just demand that a foreign entity be operating
under the same rules as our own entities, especially a foreign
entity that is described as their enemy?
Dr. Atkinson. I do not think you can underestimate inertia
in the Federal bureaucracy. It is just because they have been
doing it that way, and it is very, very hard to change that
attitude and that mindset, which is really ultimately what
Presidential leadership is about.
Mr. Perry. Are these the actions of the Secretary of the
SEC or the Treasury guided by the direction of the President?
Is that simply how difficult it is, or is it something much
more complicated that requires papers and boards and meetings
and/or can this be done essentially with the stroke of a pen?
Dr. Atkinson. Quick, there are a lot of things that could
be done by a stroke of a pen or just basically the Presidential
bully pulpit.
Mr. Perry. Dr. Thayer?
Dr. Thayer. As Chairman Comer recognized, it is an aspect
of recognizing the nature of the threat, of the immediacy of
the threat, and, essentially, this is thinking of the Ancient
regime. This is old thinking. They are thinking that the
People's Republic of China is going to be a responsible
stakeholder, as it was once observed. They simply do not
recognize the nature of the CCP threat.
Mr. Perry. I just got to say, Dr. Thayer, if you are
working at the SEC or the Treasury or the Administration and
have that mindset, I think it is long past time that you go
find a job in the private sector. That having been said,
Ambassador, what has frustrated me, among a million other
things on this topic, is the World Trade Organization and that
China continues to operate as a developing nation, right?
Again, while Congress ponders the implications and does
nothing, how can an administration unilaterally take action to
right this thing and treat China and have the rest of the world
treat China for what it actually is?
Mr. Cella. Well, I am not a trade policy expert, but I
would just begin taking steps to see how you could derisk or
decouple them from the WTO. Not uncomplicated, but I think that
conversation has to happen. Again, our footing is not
commensurate with the threat. I think we need to be nimble and
aggressively work with our Five Eyes partners and others with
more oars in the water, and have them pedaling much faster than
they are now.
Mr. Perry. So, I think what I just heard you say is, look,
we got to at least start by having a view toward doing that and
then laying out the steps. But I gather from that comment that
that step or those steps have not even occurred at this point.
Mr. Cella. Widely controversial.
Mr. Perry. Why would it be widely controversial? Who
considers China a developing Nation like they are, you know,
like they are still farming with oxen out in the rice paddies
or something like that, and they all eat, like, you know, 4
ounces of rice and drink a cup of water a day for sustenance?
Is that what people believe literally?
Mr. Cella. I think there are a lot of people making a lot
of money. I think it is driven by Wall Street, and I think it
is also driven by consumer appetites as well. So, I think we
have settled into this kind of arcadia or sloth period for a
number of years, and one of your colleagues on the other side
of the aisle raised it, but it needs to be engaged accordingly
and not have this China blindness that the great Admiral
Studeman referred to in a speech last year.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Fallon from Texas.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
the witnesses. I think the greatest threat to stability and
prosperity and liberty that not only our country faces, but the
world, is the Chinese Communist Party. The United States,
though, is uniquely poised and positioned to thwart the
ambitions of the ruling elite in Beijing as we are the only
Nation really that is strong enough to stymie China's ever-
growing aggressiveness and their expansionist ideas. It is
incumbent upon us here in Congress to protect our country, our
allies, and nations across the globe from the CCP's political
warfare and their malign influence and aggression. Mr. Stokes,
do you think that the great power competition that we currently
see will continue?
Mr. Stokes. Yes.
Mr. Fallon. I mean, I do as well. You do not think that
China is going to change direction and amend their ways anytime
soon, do you?
Mr. Stokes. No.
Mr. Fallon. No. I agree with that, and I think technology
is going to be the currency of competition moving forward. Do
you think that we should work together--when I say ``we,''
meaning Congress--in either this or the next administration, to
protect our domestic RDT&E from foreign exploitation?
Mr. Stokes. Yes.
Mr. Fallon. I think that is critical because it seems to me
that every day, China is trying to not only close the gap, but
really even exceed our expectation or our capabilities. And we
have got, you know, limited time, and I got a few more
questions, and I am going to go through them really quickly. Do
you think that the Congress and the next administration should
also be proactively countering the China's Belt and Road
Initiative?
Mr. Stokes. Yes.
Mr. Fallon. Do you think DoD could play a role in
countering it as well?
Mr. Stokes. Yes, mostly for the military, dual-use military
installations part.
Mr. Fallon. Well, because that is what I was thinking
because tasking organizations within the Pentagon--I serve on
the Armed Services Committee--with executing some of the
regionally based ops may be a very good idea, and because
considering the resources and the relationships and
partnerships that they have already established. Are we
tracking?
Mr. Stokes. Yes.
Mr. Fallon. Yes, you know, and also, let us talk real
quickly about missile defense. I am concerned because of the
advances that the Chinese have made and the Russians, with
hypersonics. Do you think that our missile defense should be a
critical component of our national security architecture?
Mr. Stokes. I think, in general, yes, defending against
hypersonic missiles is incredibly difficult as a technical
challenge.
Mr. Fallon. Sure, and so developing our own advanced
missile defense system should be something that we should
really focus on.
Mr. Stokes. Yes, in general, but I think we have to weigh
across the whole portfolio of our capabilities, where our money
is best spent.
Mr. Fallon. You know, and thank you. I want to appreciate
your honest answers. And what I find interesting is that what
we just discussed, every single question that was asked could
be found in the Department of Defense chapter in Project 2025,
that, like, it seems to be the boogeyman of many Democrats, and
it is the policy Freddy Krueger, if you will. And in fact, the
Ranking Member last week mentioned Project 2025 12 times in a 7
1/2-minute opening statement, and nearly every Democrat did as
well. They were talking about Project 2025 and the malign and
influence, and it is nefarious in nature. But you know what
Project 2025 really is? It is policy thoughts and a wish list
from a think tank. That is what think tanks do. No Republican
on the Hill or senior advisor to the Trump Administration or
Presidential campaign commissioned it. It is 920-pages-plus of
ideas, some good, some excellent, and some I am sure I do not
agree with because I did not read all 920 pages. But because
the Democrats talked about it so much last week, I actually
picked it up this weekend and read a few excerpts from it.
And I find that curious that there were pejoratives thrown
out there. It was extreme and it was chaos and corruption.
Well, I have another word: ``yawn.'' It was much to-do about
nothing or at least very little. Essentially, what the
Oversight Democrats' argument seems to be is that President
Trump is going to push a policy platform he has never endorsed,
but Kamala Harris will not champion any position she has
endorsed even recently. I find that quite amazing that those
Democrats' whole argument relies on the American people having
the attention span and memory of a goldfish, or at least Joe
Biden. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. Now, we are
waiting for Mr. Langworthy, who is en route, to ask questions.
So, after that, we are going to close and give our closing
remarks. But if the Ranking Member is OK, I may yield to him to
give some brief closing remarks, and then if Langworthy gets
here, he could ask questions. If you object to that, we can
hold off until he gets here, he is about 3 or 4 minutes away.
Mr. Raskin. No, that is fine. I can take it until he
arrives. That is cool. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. OK. You know, take your time----
Mr. Raskin. I appreciate it.
Chairman Comer [continuing]. Within reason.
Mr. Raskin. You know, it has been a fascinating hearing,
Mr. Chairman, and it is the third of three. I do not know if we
are going to do another about the CCP before it is all over in
this Congress, but it does give an opportunity for some closing
reflections.
One is that Americans have got to stand strong and stand
together against all of the foreign autocratic regimes,
including China, including Russia and Iran and others when they
try to attack our democracy. For the vast majority of human
history, people have lived under dictators and thugs and
bullies and autocrats and theocrats and those who irrigate
themselves the power to lord it over everybody else and to act
as dictators, and the American founders had a different idea.
They wanted to center government on the principle of the
consent of the governed, political participation and governance
by the people with freedom and rights of the people. And that
is always been controversial, both in America, but also among
our autocratic adversaries abroad. And so, in this century, a
number of our foreign adversaries have directly intervened in
American politics to try to undermine our elections in order to
fix our elections or corrupt our elections by guaranteeing that
this or that candidate or party would win.
Russia intervened systematically in our Presidential
election in 2016, according to the findings of more than a
dozen of our own intelligence agencies. I know Donald Trump
said he agreed with Vladimir Putin that Putin had not
intervened, but it was simply an incontestable and indisputable
truth that is well documented and well understood both by
Congress and also by the national security departments. The
Director of National Intelligence tells us it is happening
again in this election, as it happened in 2020, and I
appreciate the fact that I believe all of our witnesses, at
least most of them, were able to opine that they acknowledged
that there was a very close strategic political alliance
between the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin, the
former chief of the KGB, who has set himself at war against
Democratic political institutions in America and around the
world.
The second point I want to make is that political
propaganda and disinformation and elite capture are indeed
critical tools for the authoritarian powers, and we need look
no further than the political career of Donald Trump, who has
been played like a fiddle by the Chinese Communist Party and by
Vladimir Putin. He has lavished praise as President on
President Xi dozens of times. His daughter got more than 40
trademarks from the Chinese Government. He pocketed more than
$3 million directly from the Chinese Government, Mr. Chairman,
and we were able to determine that from the documents that were
turned over before the Committee stopped them from being turned
over, according to the Mazars' litigation. And we have seen, of
course, this same kind of capitulation to Vladimir Putin, that
is, elite capture, that is propaganda and disinformation
infecting our political system. And we have had Republican
luminaries complaining about the fact that there are Republican
Members of Congress who have been parroting disinformation put
out by Putin and the Chinese Government.
But what we have got that the rest of the world does not
have is we have got a true devotion to rule by the people. And
in the process of this election, a statement was just released
by a bipartisan group of 741 national security leaders for
Kamala Harris, and they wrote, ``We don't agree on everything--
the Republicans, Democrats, Independents--but we all adhere to
two fundamental principles. First, we believe America's
national security requires a serious and capable Commander-in-
Chief. Second, we believe American democracy is invaluable.
Each generation has a responsibility to defend it. That is why
we, the undersigned, proudly endorse Harris to be the next
President of the United States. The election is a choice
between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a
choice between democracy and authoritarianism. We do not make
such an assessment lightly,'' and I would like to submit that
for the record, and I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Langworthy for 5 minutes.
Mr. Langworthy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Just 3
weeks ago, in my home state of New York, the Deputy Chief of
Staff to Governor Kathy Hochul, was arrested on Federal charges
for acting as a secret agent of the Chinese Government. Let me
repeat that for everyone: a senior aide for the current
Governor of one of the most populous states in our country
infiltrated state politics and served as an asset and agent for
the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. Dr.
Thayer, are you familiar with the situation?
Dr. Thayer. Yes, Congressman, I am.
Mr. Langworthy. Thank you. Well, I could go on and on
about, you know, what I think of the competence level of
Governor Hochul's Administration. What I think is particularly
alarming is that Linda Sun was not some low-level bureaucrat in
some deep department. She held a very senior position, advising
Governor Hochul on critical matters of state policy. Sun
blocked Taiwanese Government representatives from getting
access to high-ranking New York state officials and altered the
messaging of state officials on issues of importance to the
Chinese Government, all at the request of Chinese officials.
Sun also helped Chinese Government officials travel to the
United States and to meet with New York officials by providing
unauthorized invitation letters from high level state officers.
Dr. Thayer, if a foreign agent can operate with such
impunity within one of the largest states in the union for over
a decade, how many more are there? How many more are there
working in the shadows in other state houses or other
municipalities or even here in our departments in Washington,
D.C.? Is it hundreds? Is it thousands, hundreds of thousands? I
mean, you know, the Federal Government is, you know, so
bloated, you know. How deep is this problem?
Dr. Thayer. Well, that is a key question, of course, in
terms of illuminating it. The Sun case is really an archetype
of how they proceed, of how their both intelligence collection
as a broader component of political warfare proceeds. And so,
it is a sad and unfortunate reminder of this problem that we
see in the United States, that we see in other countries as
well. So, with respect to your question, there must be orders
of magnitude more in terms of agents as well as agents of
influence, the evidence of the success of their political
warfare campaign.
Mr. Langworthy. I mean, this should scare the hell out of
everyone on both sides of the aisle that in a state where the
budget is $220-plus billion, you know, the financial capital of
the world, I mean, this is not, you know, a small and
unsophisticated government, and the fact that this was able to
happen in New York, I just find staggering. And to make matters
worse, this is not the first time New York state has been
compromised by the CCP. Last year, several individuals were
arrested on charges that they had helped to establish secret
police stations in New York City on behalf of the Chinese
Government, and dozens of officers with China's National Police
were charged with using social media to harass dissidents in
New York state and across the country. Dr. Thayer, can you
elaborate on why the Chinese Government would establish a
secret police station in New York City?
Dr. Thayer. It is a tool of coercion. It is a violation of
our sovereignty. These centers which exist, which they call
service centers, of course, but they are police stations, and
their purpose is to intimidate and coerce Chinese Americans,
other members of the Chinese diaspora, for example, and why we
tolerate such a violation of our sovereignty, I simply do not
know.
Mr. Langworthy. And unfortunately, New York state responded
with absolutely no coherent strategy to combat the CCP at the
state level, and New York state is not the only one to blame
here. The Biden Administration has done nothing to address the
alarming level of CCP infiltration into this country. Dr.
Thayer, you have emphasized that the Trump Administration
initiated a strong and effective resistance to China's growing
interest. However, you have also noted that the Biden Harris-
Administration shifted away from this strategy, altering the
course of what you had acknowledged as a successful approach
countering China's actions. How did the Biden-Harris
Administration shift away from President Trump's strategy of
strong and effective resistance to China's growing threat?
Dr. Thayer. It did so in many ways, but to touch on three
which are most significant, what the Biden-Harris
Administration did was to move away in terms of our political
signaling to allies that engagement was returning, and that as
a result of that, the CCP recognized that they, again, had the
opportunity to pressure their hyper-aggressive activities, for
example, against the Philippines, in the South China Sea, other
allies, and partners.
The second step that they took was to step away--the
messaging, Congressman, is absolutely essential. Trump was
recognizing the CCP as a threat and it was going to be dealt
with by the United states, as many members of the
Administration recognized. The United States was seeking to
identify and to describe the nature of the threat and also to
advance a solution to that threat, involving allies and
partners, and the Biden-Harris Administration has regrettably
and sadly backed away from it. And so those signals reverberate
for all global audiences, those who wish us well in
international politics, for example, and those who are our foes
in international politics.
But we have seen under Biden-Harris, a return to hyper-
aggression of the Chinese Communist Party, a violation of
Japanese sovereignty, numerous threats against Taiwan, missiles
deployed against Taiwan. Again, the Philippines, a treaty ally
of the United States, right now is being evicted from its
territory, as recognized by the 2016 Permanent Court of
Arbitration decision and by the 2002 Code of Conduct between
ASEAN states and the PRC. It is being essentially evicted out
of its sovereign territory, coerced out of its sovereign
territory by the PRC. So, we are seeing, sadly, this hyper-
aggressive regime applying all of its means to advance while
the Biden-Harris Administration are not taking the steps
necessary to deter these actions by the CCP.
Mr. Langworthy. Well, I thank you very much for your time.
I wish I had another 10 minutes to ask you questions, but I
yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman from Buffalo yields back, and
before I close, I would recognize Ranking Member for some
unanimous consents.
Mr. Raskin. Yes. Thank you kindly. This one is an
Associated Press article called, ``The Arrest of a Former Aide
to New York Governor Highlights Efforts to Root Out Chinese
Agents in the U.S.'' It is about aggressive Department of
Justice investigation of CCP interference.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Raskin. I have got one from CNN, saying, ``Trump Claims
Not to Know Who is Behind Project 2025. A CNN Review Found at
Least 140 People Who Worked for Him Were Involved.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Raskin. And then finally, from Salon: ``In Resurfaced
Speech, Trump Endorses Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Chairman Comer. And I want to thank our witnesses for being
here today and wanted to have a few closing remarks and just
state for the record, the Oversight Committee has investigated
25 sectors of the Federal Government. The findings of this
governmentwide investigation are very alarming. The Federal
Government under the Biden-Harris Administration has no
cohesive strategy to secure America in this cold war. None,
zero. Now, they can send talking points to their very obedient
Democrat Members of Congress, and they can say there is a
strategy, but there really is not a strategy.
And for example, when the Oversight Committee requested a
briefing, just a briefing from the National Security Council
about the Federal Government's response to CCP unrestricted
warfare, the National Security Council declined to brief the
Committee and instead stated that the Biden-Harris
Administration strategy is to be resilient, that is the type of
subsistence that we are seeing from candidate Harris is just
talking points, we will be resilient. Now, that does not appear
to be the case at all. So, what this Committee wants to do is
to identify the problems, and I think with our three hearings,
we have, in a bipartisan manner, agreed for the most part. Most
people on this Committee are serious. There are a few that are
not, and I think everyone in America who watched C-SPAN today
saw the ones who are not. We agree there is a problem with
Chinese Communist Party.
The witnesses testified today there is a problem with the
Chinese Communist Party trying to infiltrate our government
agencies and our political system and what we have to do as a
Congress is come together in a bipartisan way to come up with
solutions to the problem. And I believe that we can come up
with solutions, but the first step is for our government
agencies to fully understand the threat, what is a threat and
to have a plan to combat that threat. And certainly, Congress,
I believe, can come together and talking about the
manufacturing threat, when we talk about the national security
concerns with so much of our technology, our semiconductors,
and things being made from China and Taiwan, we certainly want
to bring that back to the United States, and that starts with a
tax policy. It starts with a trade policy. We need to identify,
as a Congress, the most critical manufactured items that we
import from China that are of the utmost importance to our
national security, whether it be our technology or whether it
be certain pharmaceuticals that are manufactured in China. We
need to be manufacturing that in the United States, if not in
the United States, then in a friendlier country than the United
States. So, I think these are things that Congress can come
together on.
I want to thank the Committee staff, most of the Committee
as a whole, for working together on this issue. This is
something that I think we have to identify, and I think there
is bipartisan opportunity. Hopefully, after the election, my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle will be rid of their
Trump derangement syndrome, and we can focus on substantive
policy to work with our government, regardless of who wins the
election, to try to be able to first identify the threat within
these government agencies, and then to be able to have a
solution to combat the threat because China is not going away.
They are in better financial shape than we are. They are
certainly more united than our government is, but we have to
come together on this issue, and I think we will. And I am
proud that this has been a priority of this Congress, for this
Committee. This is our last Committee before November, and we
have had a lot of accomplishments within our goal of
identifying waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the
Federal Government, and this is certainly a huge threat in our
Federal Government.
So, again, I want to thank our witnesses for being here
today.
With that and without objection, all Members have 5
legislative days within which to submit materials and
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses.
Chairman Comer. If there is no further business, without
objection, the Committee stands adjourned. Thank you, all.
[Whereupon, at 1:19 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[all]