[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COUNTERING THREATS POSED BY THE CHINESE
COMMUNIST PARTY TO U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 5, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-6
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-878 WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee, Chairman
Michael T. McCaul, Texas, Vice Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi,
Chair Ranking Member
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Eric Swalwell, California
Michael Guest, Mississippi J. Luis Correa, California
Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida Shri Thanedar, Michigan
August Pfluger, Texas Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island
Andrew R. Garbarino, New York Daniel S. Goldman, New York
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Tony Gonzales, Texas Timothy M. Kennedy, New York
Morgan Luttrell, Texas LaMonica McIver, New Jersey
Dale W. Strong, Alabama Julie Johnson, Texas, Vice Ranking
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma Member
Elijah Crane, Arizona Pablo Jose Hernandez, Puerto Rico
Andrew Ogles, Tennessee Nellie Pou, New Jersey
Sheri Biggs, South Carolina Vacant
Gabe Evans, Colorado Vacant
Ryan Mackenzie, Pennsylvania Vacant
Brad Knott, North Carolina
Eric Heighberger, Staff Director
Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
Sean Corcoran, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
Honorable Michael Guest, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Mississippi:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Honorable Mark E. Green, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Tennessee, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland
Security:
Closing Statement.............................................. 82
Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 3
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
Witnesses
Mr. Michael Pillsbury, Private Citizen:
Oral Statement................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
Mr. William R. Evanina, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, The
Evanina Group:
Oral Statement................................................. 17
Prepared Statement............................................. 19
Mr. Craig Singleton, Senior Fellow and China Program Senior
Director, Foundation for Defense of Democracies:
Oral Statement................................................. 26
Prepared Statement............................................. 28
Mr. Rush Doshi, Ph.D., Private Citizen:
Oral Statement................................................. 44
Prepared Statement............................................. 47
For the Record
Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Article, CNN, March 1, 2025.................................... 83
Article, New York Times, February 5, 2025...................... 84
Appendix
Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green, MD for Michael Pillsbury.. 89
Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green, MD for William R. Evanina. 89
Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green, MD for Craig Singleton.... 90
COUNTERING THREATS POSED BY THE
CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY TO U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY
----------
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in
room 310, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Michael Guest
presiding.
Present: Representatives McCaul, Guest, Pfluger, Brecheen,
Ogles, Biggs of South Carolina, Evans of Colorado, Mackenzie,
Thompson of Mississippi, Swalwell, Correa, Thanedar, Magaziner,
Goldman, Kennedy of New York, McIver, Hernandez, and Pou.
Mr. Guest. The Committee on Homeland Security will come to
order.
Without objection, the Chair may declare the committee in
recess at any point.
The purpose of today's hearing is to examine the threats
posed by the Chinese Communist Party to U.S. national security.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Today's hearing focuses on the generational threat that the
Chinese Communist Party poses to our homeland. The first step
is to recognize the nature of our adversary.
For decades China has steadily pursued a long-term grand
strategy to replace the United States as the leading global
power. We cannot afford wishful thinking or willful ignorance
about the nature of the Chinese regime and its on-going efforts
to undermine the United States.
We also need proactive measures to counter the CCP's
actions that jeopardize our Homeland Security, especially given
that most of the threats they pose are unfolding now below the
threshold of traditional conflict.
One of our distinguished witnesses, Dr. Michael Pillsbury,
has persuasively argued that China is engaged in a 100-year
marathon, a grand strategy to surpass and overtake the United
States on the world stage, and reorder the world according to
the CCP's priorities and their values.
This long-term strategy is comprehensive. It is not limited
to military capabilities. It includes the full range of
economic, diplomatic, technological, and political competition.
Critically China is willing to play the long game and build
up its power over the course of decades. The CCP's ultimate aim
is not to enjoy a peaceful balance of power with the West but
to establish its position as the dominant world power.
A world oriented around the vision and values of the CCP
would look very different from the unparalleled freedom and
prosperity produced by the Pax Americana.
In contrast, the Chinese vision would mean a global order
subordinate to the desires and the interests of a totalitarian
Communist regime.
In recent years, the People's Republic of China has engaged
in sustained campaigns of transnational repression,
intellectual property theft, and espionage here in the United
States.
Over the past 4 years, there have been more than 60
espionage cases across 20 States linked to the CCP, operations
to gather intelligence on sensitive military information and
the theft of technology and trade secrets.
Just this past December, a Chinese citizen was arrested for
flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
He was apprehended at the airport, trying to board a flight
back to China.
Additionally, agents of Beijing have targeted dissidents
and regime critics within the United States through covert
Chinese police stations in New York City and other major
cities.
Espionage, including economic and technology theft, are key
to the CCP's strategy to undermine the United States, while
fueling its own technological advancement.
Today the United States remains unmatched as a hub for
technological innovation, but the PRC routinely and
systematically steals technology and research from American
companies and universities for the benefit of the Chinese state
industrial complex.
Many Chinese corporations are state-owned enterprises, and
China's national security laws give the regime the power to
force companies to hand over any information or data.
Moreover, the CCP has implemented a national strategy of
military-civil fusion to position the People's Liberation Army
as the dominant military power by 2049.
Part of this strategy is mass intellectual property theft
of sensitive information from both U.S. military and civilian
targets.
The CCP exploits American research and development to the
tune of several hundred billion dollars every single year, and
this theft directly affects all Americans.
As one of our witnesses today will state, these losses cost
the average American family of 4 between $4- and $6,000 yearly.
This is happening through traditional espionage tactics and
targeted cyber attacks affecting industries engaged in
innovative developments, ranging from military technology and
artificial intelligence to semiconductors and medical research.
Here in the 119th Congress, this committee has the
opportunity to advance significant legislation to counter the
CCP's effort to undermine our national security.
Working together, we can find practical policy solutions to
shift the playing field in our favor. Whether we are countering
acts of transnational repression, strengthening our
cybersecurity with legislation by the Cyber PIVOTT Act, or
shoring up our economic security and supply chain resilience,
we can make major headway on meeting the challenges posed by
the PRC.
The freedoms and prosperity of the American people in the
decades to come depend on our courage, on our foresight, and
our ability to take decisive action now.
I look forward to a serious discussion on the critical
threats posed by the CCP to the United States homeland as we
kick off this committee's effort to protect the homeland
against foreign actors.
I now at this time recognize the Ranking Member, the
gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Thompson, for his opening
statement.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and before
I begin my statement, let me say with a heavy heart that we've
been informed that a Member of this committee, Mr. Sylvester
Turner, former mayor of Houston, passed earlier this morning.
At some point, we will do a more formal recognition of his
tenure on the committee by the committee, so I wanted to make
that part of just people knowing.
Good morning and welcome to our panel of witnesses. Today
the committee is examining the threats posed by the Chinese
Communist Party to our national security.
The threats are very real. The CCP is looking for every
opportunity to undermine our security and get the upper hand on
the global United States.
The problem is Congressional Republicans' tough talk on
China is at odds with the Trump administration's actions, which
are hurting America's ability to counter threats from the CCP.
For example, China is carrying out cyber attacks, or
espionage, to preposition for attacks against our critical
infrastructure in the event of future conflicts.
According to the intelligence community's 2024 Worldwide
Threat Assessment, China remains the most active and persistent
cyber threat to the U.S. Government, private sector, and
critical infrastructure networks.
Unbelievably, President Trump has fired key cybersecurity
personnel at the Department of Homeland Security and dismissed
members of the Cyber Safety Review Board investigating recent
Chinese attacks.
We are hearing that up to 50 percent of the remaining work
force of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency might
be targeted in the days ahead.
Let's be clear. The Trump administration gutting U.S. cyber
defenses makes it harder to protect Americans against Chinese
cyber attacks and makes us less safe.
What are Congressional Republicans doing to preserve the
work force that protects our cyber networks?
Nothing.
Meanwhile, in its rush to fire Government employees, the
Trump administration sent out an unclassified email with the
names of CIA analysts and operatives working to counter China.
One former CIA officer referred to the email as a,
``counterintelligence nightmare''.
What are Congressional Republicans doing to stop the White
House chaos and protect intelligence information from Chinese
hackers?
Nothing.
China is also on a mission to steal our economic secrets
and personal data to gain a competitive advantage. Fortunately
for China, Elon Musk is lending a hand.
Musk and his DOGE lackeys have made key Federal data
systems more vulnerable and put millions of Americans' data at
risk by snooping in sensitive cyber networks without adequate
security protections.
What are Congressional Republicans doing to protect
Americans' personal data from Musk, DOGE, and possible
exploitation by China?
Nothing.
Additionally, China is using its Belt and Road Initiative
to leverage investments to expand its influence in the
developing world.
Rather than protecting America's interests globally, the
Trump-Musk administration slashed U.S. foreign investment and
alienated allies and partners, undermining our ability to
compete with China for influence on the global stage.
This morning, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump-Musk
administration efforts to end the U.S. foreign investment,
clearing the way for the State Department and USAID to restart
nearly $2 billion in payments.
But what are Congressional Republicans doing to protect
American interests around the world?
Nothing.
The Trump administration is weakening America against China
while Elon Musk sits inside the White House asserting seemingly
limitless influence over the Executive branch of government.
That's no coincidence.
Musk has troubling close ties with China. Though the full
extent of his entanglements are unknown because he refuses to
file a public financial disclosure and has failed to disclose
meetings with Chinese officials.
Still, it's clear Musk's businesses rely heavily on China
for their success, and he has over a billion dollars in loans
from state-owned Chinese banks.
Musk has taken public stances to the benefit of China and
has even suggested giving some control over Taiwan to China.
His own former DOGE co-chair raised concerns about Musk's
ties to China, saying, ``I have no reason to think Elon won't
jump like a circus monkey when Chinese President Xi Jinping
calls in the hour of need.'' That doesn't sound like America
first. It sounds like China first.
What are Congressional Republicans doing to sound the alarm
about someone beholden to China running our government?
Nothing.
Democrats agree that the CCP poses a threat to U.S.
security and want to keep Americans safe. If Republicans want
to counter China's influence and protect U.S. interests, they
should start by holding their own administration accountable.
Talking tough on China but bending the knee to Trump and
Musk plays right into the CCP's hands. Let's hope the other
side remembers their oath is to the Constitution and not to the
man in the White House or his unelected billionaire co-
president.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
March 5, 2025
Today, the committee is examining the threats posed by the Chinese
Communist Party to our national security. These threats are very real.
The CCP is looking for every opportunity to undermine our security and
get the upper hand on the U.S. globally.
The problem is, Congressional Republicans' tough talk on China is
at odds with the Trump administration's actions, which are hurting
America's ability to counter threats from the CCP. For example, China
is carrying out cyber attacks for espionage and to position itself for
attacks against our critical infrastructure in the event of a future
conflict.
According to the intelligence community's 2024 World Wide Threat
assessment, ``China remains the most active and persistent cyber threat
to U.S. Government, private sector, and critical infrastructure
networks.''
Unbelievably, President Trump has fired key cybersecurity personnel
at the Department of Homeland Security and dismissed members of the
Cyber Safety Review Board investigating recent Chinese attacks.
We are hearing that significant cuts are coming for the remaining
workforce at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Let's be clear--the Trump administration gutting U.S. cyber defenses
makes it harder to protect Americans against Chinese cyber attacks and
makes us less safe.
What are Congressional Republicans doing to preserve the workforce
that protects our cyber networks? Nothing.
Meanwhile, in its rush to fire Government employees, the Trump
administration sent out an unclassified email with the names of CIA
analysts and operatives working to counter China. One former CIA
officer referred to the email as a, quote, ``counterintelligence
nightmare.''
What are Congressional Republicans doing to protect this
information from Chinese hackers? Nothing.
China is also on a mission to steal our economic secrets and
personal data to gain a competitive advantage. Fortunately for China,
Elon Musk is lending a hand. Musk and his DOGE lackeys have made key
Federal data systems more vulnerable and put millions of Americans'
data at risk by snooping in sensitive cyber networks without adequate
security protections.
What are Congressional Republicans doing to protect Americans'
personal data from Musk, DOGE, and possible exploitation by China?
Nothing.
Additionally, China is using its ``Belt and Road Initiative'' to
leverage investments to expand its influence in the developing world.
Rather than protecting America's interests globally, the Trump-Musk
administration has slashed U.S. foreign investment and alienated allies
and partners, undermining our ability to compete with China for
influence on the global stage.
What are Congressional Republicans doing to protect American
interests and influence around the world? Nothing.
The Trump administration is weakening America against China, while
Elon Musk is exerting seemingly limitless influence over the Executive
branch of government. That's no coincidence. Musk has close ties with
China, though the full extent of his entanglements is unknown because
he refuses to file a public financial disclosure and has failed to
disclose meetings with Chinese officials.
Still, it is clear Musk's businesses rely heavily on China for
their success, and he has over a billion dollars in loans from state-
owned Chinese banks. Musk has also taken public stances to the benefit
of China and has even suggested giving some control over Taiwan to
China.
His own former DOGE co-chair raised concerns about Musk's ties to
China, saying ``I have no reason to think Elon won't jump like a circus
monkey'' when [Chinese President] Xi Jinping calls in the hour of
need.'' That doesn't sound like ``America First''--it sounds like
``China First.''
What are Congressional Republicans doing to sound the alarm about
someone beholden to China running our Government? Nothing.
Democrats agree that the CCP poses a threat to U.S. security and
want to keep Americans safe. If Republicans want to counter China's
influence and protect U.S. interests, they should start by holding
their own administration accountable.
Talking tough on China but bending the knee to Trump and Musk plays
right into the CCP's hands. Let's hope the other side remembers their
oath is to the Constitution and not to the man in the White House or
his unelected billionaire co-President.
Mr. Guest. Before we move forward, in light of the
announcement by Ranking Member Thompson regarding the passing
of Sylvester Turner, I would like us to please take a moment of
silence to remember him and to recognize his service.
[Moment of silence.]
Mr. Guest. Thank you.
The other Members of the committee are recognized and
reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the
record.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here this morning.
I had the opportunity to visit with each of you very briefly
before the commencement of this hearing, so thank you for your
dedication, your commitment.
I know that you are all subject-matter experts in this
field, something that is extremely important to us, to this
committee, to this Congress, and to this administration.
I want to, again, thank you for being here. I would ask, if
you would at this time, please raise your right hand as I issue
the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Guest. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the
witnesses have answered in the affirmative, and thank you for
taking such an oath.
I would now like to formally introduce our witnesses.
First, Dr. Michael Pillsbury, he is a renowned China scholar
and author of ``The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret
Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.''
He has served in many distinguished governmental roles,
including as an assistant under secretary of defense for
policy, planning, special assistant--he started as special
assistant for Asian affairs in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense.
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the
International Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior
fellow for China's strategies at The Heritage Foundation. Dr.
Pillsbury earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University.
The Honorable William Evanina is a former director of the
National Counterintelligence and Security Center, in which he
led the United States Government's counterintelligence
activities. As director, he oversaw key national programs
dedicated to countering intelligence collection efforts by
foreign adversaries.
Prior to serving as director of the NCSC, he served as the
chief of the CIA's counterespionage group. He has over 31 years
of service in the Federal Government, including 24 years as a
special agent with the Bureau of Investigations, including
service as assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's
Washington field office.
Next is Mr. Craig Singleton. Craig is a senior director of
the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
He is a leading expert on U.S./China relations, an expert on
China's technological threat, and China's military-civil fusion
strategy.
He previously served as a U.S. diplomat focusing on
national security issues dealing with China, North Korea, and
the Indo-Pacific.
Finally, Dr. Rush Doshi is the C.V. Starr senior fellow for
Asian studies and director of the China Strategies Initiative
at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Doshi was deputy senior director for China and Taiwan
on the National Security Council from 2021 to 2024. He is also
an assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at
Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today.
I would now like to recognize each of you for 5 minutes to
summarize your remarks in the form of an opening statement.
I will begin with Dr. Pillsbury.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL PILLSBURY, PRIVATE CITIZEN
Mr. Pillsbury. Thank you Mr. Acting Chairman and Ranking
Member Thompson.
Mark Green, your Chairman, advised me I should try to say
something new and fresh and assume that the Members of the
Homeland Security Committee are all highly informed about China
already and don't need the presentation from me that says, you
know, the capital city is Beijing, and the population is 1.4
billion. So I'll try to meet his challenge.
He said, ``Why don't you go back to your book 10 years ago
where you recommended 12 steps in the last chapter and then
tell us which of the 12 remain to be implemented.''
It's kind-of hard because only the first one was
implemented. The first one was to recognize our long-term
competition with China.
Ten years ago, that was kind-of strange. Now, pretty much
everybody talks as though it's common knowledge. So that's 1
out of 12.
The other 11, I'm not going to mention all, but I'm going
to mention 3 that are, I think, relevant to this Homeland
Security Committee because I used to be a Senate staffer.
My first job in 1978 in the Senate staff was the Senate
Budget Committee, and I learned a lesson fairly quickly: The
jurisdiction of committees is something Senators fight over.
So, if we could have something unique that Homeland
Security does itself with your Senate partner Rand Paul as
well, there's some areas that need to be looked at that could
be done just by your committee.
Now, don't get angry at me, but one of the first things is
to consider this committee going to Beijing, not just Foreign
Affairs and Foreign Relations and Armed Services travel, but
Homeland Security, with a well-organized agenda agreed to in
advance by the Chinese, could answer questions you have and
also would be a kind-of healthy pressure on how the Chinese see
America's request.
The second idea I have is that Homeland Security's
jurisdiction includes a lot of agencies, and one of my most
important recommendations 10 years ago is we try to do a
survey, even annual if necessary, of exactly what each
Government department or agency is doing to assist China.
The head of OMB tried to do this. He's back now again as
the head of OMB. He put out a very specific kind of document to
all Government agencies: Define what you're doing to help China
one way or another--it was defined very broadly--how much money
is involved, and yes or no, do you have authority from Congress
to do this?
The study ran into enormous difficulties. Agencies did not
want to admit that they each had a program with China, and none
of them had Congressional authorization to do what they were
doing.
One of these was helping the labor union disputes. The
Labor Department was sending mediators. Another one was that
Chinese banks were in trouble. So a team from the Controller of
the Currency went out to show Chinese banks, state-owned banks,
how better to measure nonperforming loans.
All of these programs or maybe as many as 20 were designed
originally when our relationship with China was one of sort-of
the older brother helping China get into the world.
All that has changed, but these programs continue on. Many
of them are under the jurisdiction of this committee.
The other idea--because of limits of time, let me kind-of
just dwell on it for 30 seconds--the other idea was, if we're
in a long-term competition with China, how do we know where
we're going? How do we know the most effective measures that
need to be adopted?
You all know the Mad Hatter in ``Alice in Wonderland.''
When any road--if you don't know where you're going, any road
will take you there. That's kind-of the situation we're in now
with the picture of the long-term competition.
How is it going to end? I can tell you what the Chinese
say. A very common scenario, talking with Chinese or reading
their materials, is they think America is looking for another
Gorbachev and wants the collapse of the Chinese Communist
Party, Russian-style. Very, very similar concerns.
Xi Jinping has spoken on this himself many times. There's
never going to be a China Gorbachev. So they're very defensive
about it. They're prepared for it.
Rather strangely, we're not doing this. As far as I know,
the U.S. Government is not trying to put a Gorbachev in China
and overthrow the CCP, anything from it.
There are several other scenarios. Each scenario, each
outcome suggests a different set of measures we should do, but
to measure how we're doing in the competition, I propose, has
not been done. There's no annual report on how are we doing
vis-a-vis, let's say, 20 or 30 indicators with China. So we're
working in the dark.
Some professors have worked on this. There's several good
books about it. But there's no White House Annual Report on how
we're doing in the competition with China, let's say, for 20 or
30 indicators. That's a vacuum that this committee could help
to fill. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pillsbury follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Pillsbury
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Good morning Chairman Green, Ranking Member Thompson, and Members
of the Committee on Homeland Security.
Thank you for the opportunity to be one of your witnesses to
comment on the subject of dealing with the China threat to U.S.
national security.
I am a fan of this committee's work on China. One vivid example is
your February report on the committee website titled ``China Threat
Snapshot,'' which provides voters with a detailed description of
Chinese espionage in the last 3 years.\1\ The revelation of these
details will sicken American patriots. Another example: The committee
has been rightly skeptical about the 2025 Annual Homeland Security
Threat Assessment, raising questions about how China is described. I
would hope that the authors within the Department's 800-person
Intelligence and Analysis unit are doing something more about China
than the report seems to indicate.
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\1\ House Committee on Homeland Representative [sic] Subcommittee
on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, ``China Threat Snapshot,''
https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CCP-Threat-
UPDATED-Feb-2025.pdf.
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My first recommendation today is that the committee provide focus
by developing a list of specific initiatives on China to win the much-
discussed strategic competition. There are some good ideas in Senator
Tom Cotton's new national No. 1 bestseller, Seven Things You Can't Say
About China. I would recommend that everyone buy this short book of
30,000 words. I can't resist revealing the seventh point he makes:
``China May Win.'' Now, as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, Senator Cotton describes a world in which China will
``supplant'' America as the dominant superpower.\2\ This is an
important concept that I'll return to. Our new CIA Director, John
Ratcliffe, has also committed at his confirmation hearing to focus on
the greatest threat: China. In this context, what exactly can the
Committee on Homeland Security do? What is its comparative advantage
among other committees and with respect to the Executive branch?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Tom Cotton, Seven Things You Can't Say About China (New York:
Broadside Books, 2025), 154.
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Today, there is no shortage of ideas about how to deal with the
threat from China. The problem is these ideas are often not relevant,
filled with loopholes, or may never be implemented. The challenge we
face is that 10 years of complacency may stretch into 10 more years. I
served as a co-editor of one of the Heritage Foundation's special
reports, Winning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering China.\3\ We
assembled as many legislative ideas as we could find to deal with the
China threat. We found more than 80 and broke them down into 4
categories in our publication. Many of the ideas were proposed by
single sponsors and a few co-sponsors, but didn't make it past
committee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Heritage Foundation, ``Winning the New Cold War: A Plan for
Countering China,'' https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-
07/SR270.pdf. See executive summary, 5-15. See also the final chapter
by Michael Pillsbury, ``The Way Forward,'' 116-118.
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China is watching this American inactivity. During my visits to
China since my 2015 book, The Hundred-Year Marathon, was published,
Chinese officials and scholars have pointed out how weak the American
Congress has been in dealing with the China threat. Chinese think tanks
and professors keep careful track of our China policy. A common Chinese
view is that efforts by America's Congress to counter China have been
vague and often watered down to mere rhetorical flourishes. Still other
legislative proposals just disappeared in conference. Remember that
Communist China's experts on American politics usually have American
university degrees and read our press carefully. We lack equivalent
coverage of China's politics, in part due to massive Chinese secrecy
about issues we care the most about.
When I ask Chinese experts on America to score who is ahead, the
answer is always ``China.''
In 2000, the National Defense University published my book on how
the Chinese government scores power among nations using complex
quantitative formulas. To my surprise, the Chinese translated that book
and it was sold in China as China Debates the Future Security
Environment.\4\ I revealed estimates by the PLA and other government
sources that China would be equal or surpass America by around 2020--
not in terms of GDP, but based on a more complex scoring system called
Comprehensive National Power, or CNP. Soon after, China stopped making
these forecasts public, although Xi Jinping himself often refers to the
concept of CNP.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security
Environment (Washington: National Defense University Press, 2000),
https://nuke.fas.org/guide/china/doctrine/pills2/index.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My recommendation is that we need to score our competition with
China like any other game or match, just like how we count football
touchdowns. But first, we need to decide what to cover.
The Heritage Foundation's Winning the New Cold War did not evaluate
through an index of indicators the extent to which we are succeeding or
failing in the marathon against China. My speculative scoring (over the
last 2 years since it was published) of the 80 legislative initiatives
it assembled would be China: 80, America: 0. We would do better if we
had concrete indicators showing what we should accomplish over the long
term. This would enable legislative initiatives to turn into tangible
outcomes which would give us what President Trump called ``leverage''
in his 2015 book.\5\ Frankly, we might have to go beyond legislative
initiatives, embracing ideas like committee letters to the President or
Cabinet Secretaries or a Congressional committee visit to Beijing to
convey seriousness and learn the source of Chinese arrogance stemming
from their rise, as Xi Jinping repeats in speeches.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Donald Trump, Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America (New
York: Threshold Editions, 2015), 45.
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Why is this happening? The Heritage Foundation's special report,
Winning the New Cold War, has highlighted that 1 source of China's
success has been its successful lobbying by unregistered agents
supported by the CCP who exploit a loophole in the Foreign Agents
Registration Act.\6\ In the past few weeks, the U.S. Attorney General,
Pam Bondi, has been seeking comments on tighter control of Americans
acting as agents for China, but the public commentary to Justice seeks
to block these crucial improvements. You can see for yourself by going
to the DOJ website to read the debate.\7\ Foundations and universities
who want to be rewarded for their pro-China advocacy fear the shame
they would suffer if they had to register publicly as ``foreign
agents.'' If the on-line replies to Bondi's effort are any guide,
Chinese lobbying operations inside our country will have free rein.
After all, the criminal penalty for failure to register is 5 years in
prison for each count.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Heritage Foundation, ``Winning the New Cold War,'' 7.
\7\ ``Amending and Clarifying Foreign Agents Registration Act
Regulations,'' Federal Register, January 2, 2025, https://
www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/02/2024-30871/amending-and-
clarifying-foreign-agents-registration-act-regulations#.
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Last month marked the 10-year anniversary of the publication of my
book, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace
America as the Global Superpower. In 2015, despite clear indications to
the contrary, Washington was only just coming to the realization that
China represents an existential, geopolitical threat to the United
States. The book thus outlined 12 steps at the end that American policy
makers would need to follow to compete in the so-called marathon
against China, the long-term race to the position of global superpower
that we find ourselves in today.
Ten years after my attempt to alert Washington to the urgency of
the 100-year marathon, we have made almost no progress. It might be
fruitful for me to walk through each of my 12 steps--which are even
more pertinent today--to pinpoint the path that we need to follow in
order to make up for our delayed start in the marathon.
I must note the parallel recommendations offered in another best-
selling book that appeared 10 years ago called Great Again: How to Fix
Crippled America. As I alluded to earlier, the author was President
Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump asserted correctly that there are 2
different kinds of Chinas: a good China that built great cities and
provided housing and education for millions of people, and a ``bad
China,'' the one that ``is the one mostly hidden to outsiders.''\8\ Its
government controls internet access, engages in political repression,
stifles free expression, arrests dissidents, restricts individual
freedoms, and launches cyber attacks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Trump, Great Again, 42.
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Mr. Trump was one of the first to identify the long-term China
threat to our country. His stark conclusion in 2015 was the same as
mine: We've been losing the battle to China for a long time. Trump
warned that our economies are tied together in a very negative way. In
his assessment, he used the exact same word as I did: ``replace,''
writing that ``economists have made predictions that within the next
decade, China will replace the United States as the world's largest
economy.''\9\ Then, he raised the subject of this hearing today: ``What
have we done to beat them?'' His answer was ``I'll tell you what we've
done. We've rolled over.''\10\ They have ``destroyed entire industries
by utilizing low wage workers, cost us tens of thousands of jobs, spied
on our businesses, stolen our technology, and have manipulated and
devalued their currency, which makes selling our goods more expensive--
and sometimes, impossible.''\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Trump, Great Again, 43.
\10\ Trump, Great Again, 43.
\11\ Trump, Great Again, 43.
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Mr. Trump and I had parallel recommendations about the idea of
leverage. Trump asked, ``So what should we do about it? We're going to
use the leverage we have to change the situation so that it favors
America and our people. I've negotiated with Chinese companies. I know
how they do business.''\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Trump, Great Again, 45.
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Mr. Trump's diagnosis was more poignant than my book. He created a
sentence I wish I had written which is still valid today: ``When
dealing with China we need to stand up to them and remind them that
it's bad business to take advantage of your best customer.''\13\ In
words that sound like they were only spoken yesterday, Trump wrote,
``We should sit down and figure out how to make this a more equitable
relationship.''\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Trump, Great Again, 47.
\14\ Trump, Great Again, 47.
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Let's turn to my 12 recommendations, which remind us that we have
been addicted to China and that we need to end our dependence and
instead use our leverage, as Mr. Trump advised, to get back on track.
The first step I proposed then was the most basic one, and
fortunately, perhaps the one where we can say that we have made some
limited progress: recognizing that China is a competitor. Even if we
have come to a general recognition, there are still strikingly some
voices on both sides of the political aisle that hold out naive hopes
about Beijing's future. Just recently, Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer--who has expressed great concern over Trump's China tariffs
\15\--was spotted posing for photos with CCP officials who have spread
CCP propaganda and denied allegations about the mistreatment of Uyghurs
in China.\16\ Although it is frequently repeated in Washington that
China presents an existential threat to the United States' geopolitical
predominance, words do not equate to actions. Key politicians on both
sides of the political aisle are hesitant to take decisive action that
would harm their relationship with the CCP.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Kevin Scott, ``Schumer Melts Down Over Trump's China
Tariffs,'' Knewz, February 24, 2025, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/
politics/schumer-melts-down-over-trump-s-china-tariffs/ss-
AA1zDkGj?ocid=BingHPCNews.
\16\ Andrew Mark Miller , Cameron Cawthorne, ``Schumer spotted
posing for photo with CCP official as warnings swirl about China
influence,'' Fox News, February 19, 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/
politics/schumer-spotted-posing-photo-ccp-official-warnings-swirl-
china-influence.
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The second step that I proposed in my book was for Congress to
enact an annual reporting requirement of all the assistance flowing
from American agencies and departments to China. This has still not
happened at a broad, Congressional level. Various agencies have taken
it upon themselves to verify whether they are directly or indirectly
benefiting China. The Department of Defense's annual reports on
military and security developments relating to China \17\ and the
Commerce Department's tracking of whether key technologies are being
transferred to China \18\ are 2 examples. But these agency-specific
directives fall short of documenting the total financial assistance
flowing from American coffers to the Chinese government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ U.S. Department of Defense, ``Military and Security
Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2024,'' https://
media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615520/-1/-1/0/MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-
DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA-2024.PDF.
\18\ U.S. Department of Congress, ``U.S. Trade with China,'' 2022,
https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/country-papers/3268-2022-statistical-
analysis-of-u-s-trade-with-china/file.
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The same pattern repeats itself for my third step. I had suggested
that the White House ``provide Congress with an annual report that
includes trends and forecasts about how the United States is faring
relative to its chief rivals.''\19\ There is still no single,
consolidated report that does this, but just like the assistance
reporting, some agencies are partially fulfilling this requirement. The
ODNI's Annual Threat Assessment, the White House's periodic National
Security Strategies, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission Annual Report are 3 examples of initiatives that are already
under way that could be combined into a single, comprehensive report
measuring U.S. competitiveness vis-a-vis China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret
Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower (New York: Henry
Holt and Company, 2015), 217.
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This ties in to the next recommendation which I included in the
book, which was for the United States to create a competitiveness
strategy. Again, we have made significant progress in terms of
acknowledging the military, political, technological, and economic
threat posed by China in our key defense and intelligence reports, but
we are lacking multi-agency documents--somewhat like the IC's National
Intelligence Estimate--which regularly outline a strategy for
competitiveness that we should follow to beat China in the marathon. We
don't quite know what the finish line is, which makes it hard for us to
determine what we are competing for. If this were well-articulated in a
coherent strategy, it would save a lot of time and dissonance between
Federal agencies all adopting their own unique strategies.
The fifth step which I proposed was to find common ground at home.
There is admittedly a more broad consensus today compared to 2015 that
China represents a critical threat to the U.S.-led world order. That
being said, as just mentioned, we are missing a grand strategy as to
how we should approach this threat. Nancy Pelosi's 2022 Taiwan visit
and the subsequent backlash which this triggered was an example of an
American failure in this regard. This episode signaled that we have 2
divergent China strategies--one provocative and the other
conciliatory--which we cannot agree on.\20\ In our competitiveness
strategy, we need to get both parties and people from private
companies, civil society, and Government united behind a single
approach as to how we should approach China in the decades to come.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Isaac Chotiner, ``The Provocative Politics of Nancy Pelosi's
Trip to Taiwan,'' The New Yorker, August 4, 2022, https://
www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-provocative-politics-of-nancy-
pelosis-trip-to-taiwan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sixth step I had proposed is one where we are not doing as
poorly. I had argued for the necessity of building a vertical coalition
of nations. There has been some laudable bipartisanship in terms of
U.S. rapprochement to our Asian allies. The United States has
spearheaded trilateral cooperation with Japan and Korea, both
administrations have reinforced our contributions to the Quad, both
have supported the Philippines in the face of Chinese bellicosity in
the South China Sea, and our bilateral talks with Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi have been regular and productive.\21\ Secretary of State
Marco Rubio's decision to exempt Taiwan and the Philippines from the
recent foreign aid freeze demonstrates the Trump administration's
willingness to reinforce its coalition of Asian allies to encircle
China.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Derek Grossman, ``The State-and Fate-of America's Indo-Pacific
Alliances,'' RAND, November 1, 2024, https://www.rand.org/pubs/
commentary/2024/11/the-state-and-fate-of-americas-indo-pacific-
alliances.html.
\22\ Jimmy Quinn, ``Rubio Exempts Taiwan and Philippines Security
Programs from Aid Freeze,'' National Review, February 23, 2025, https:/
/www.nationalreview.com/corner/rubio-exempts-taiwan-and-philippines-
security-programs-from-aid-freeze/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my seventh step, I had noted our obligation to shine a light on
China's political dissidents pushing back against the authoritarian
system from which they have fled. I criticized the Obama administration
for not including human rights in the 2009 Strategic and Economic
Dialogue. Once again, we have failed to be on the side of dissidents
exposing China's humanitarian crimes. Admittedly, Trump's 2
administrations took a tough stance against China with regards to the
Uyghurs. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo systematically
highlighted the religious persecution happening in China, which drew
responses from human rights organizations in the United States and
inspired a series of legislative efforts from several U.S. Federal
agencies.\23\ Current Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently condemned
Thailand for sending Uyghurs back to China.\24\ Since then, however,
most of that progress has grinded to a halt because of how much Beijing
has tightened its security apparatus. The United States will have to
continue funding outlets which give dissidents the ability to criticize
the regime from afar. This will be discussed more further in my
remarks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ United States Holocaust Museum, ``US Responses to China's
Crimes Against the Uyghurs,'' https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-
prevention/countries/china/us-responses-to-chinas-crimes-against-the-
uyghurs.
\24\ Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom, ``US condemns Thailand's
return of 40 Uyghurs to China,'' Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/
world/asia-pacific/us-condemns-thailands-return-40-uyghurs-china-2025-
02-27/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The eighth step in the 100-Year Marathon is one that has dominated
headlines in the past decade, and often not for the right reason:
stemming Beijing's anti-American competitive conduct. The United States
has still failed to decouple its military supply chain production from
China.\25\ Chinese cyber espionage has recently targeted American
telecommunications \26\ and NATO military systems.\27\ Chinese hackers
have targeted intellectual property to match the pace of American
research--which has become especially concerning as of late in the AI
sphere.\28\ There is a constant tension between transparency and
geopolitical competitiveness in the American system: We have a tendency
to make our models open source and to reveal more than we should about
the details of our military programs, which allows competitors to
replicate our strengths. One need only look at the plagiarism in
Chinese military aircraft and ships.\29\ Since there is an obligation
for Chinese citizens abroad to report back to the CCP, States will have
to tighten their security to prevent CCP-controlled firms from
collecting information on American citizens, buying farmland, and
infiltrating American military infrastructure. Arkansas Governor Sarah
Huckabee just recently took a stand against this by introducing new
legislation to curtail the ability for CCP-operated firms to operate in
her State--a move in the right direction.\30\
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\25\ Dan Nidess, ``Face the facts: America has outsourced its
military supply chain to China.'' The Hill, January 17, 2025, https://
thehill.com/opinion/5090860-us-china-trade-war-impact/.
\26\ Amir Daftari, ``Major Chinese Cyber Espionage Targeting US
Telecom Networks Uncovered by FBI,'' Newsweek, November 14, 2024,
https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-chinese-cyber-espionage-multiple-telecom-
networks-1985617.
\27\ Micah McCartney, ``China's Spies Hacked NATO Allies Defenses,
Official Says,'' Newsweek, February 8, 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/
china-spies-hacked-nato-ally-netherlands-defenses-1868006.
\28\ House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs,
``Egregious Cases of Chinese Theft of American Intellectual Property,''
https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Egregious-
Cases-of-Chinese-Theft-of-American-Intellectual-Property.pdf.
\29\ Alex Hollings, ``Counterfeit Air Power: Meet China's Copycat
Air Force,'' Popular Mechanics, September 19, 2018, https://
www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/g23303922/china-copycat-air-
force/.
\30\ Eric Shawn, ``The plan to confront China and kick out
companies controlled by the Chinese Communist Party from the U.S.,''
Fox News, February 26, 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/plan-
confront-china-kick-out-companies-controlled-chinese-communist-party-u-
s.
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My ninth step leads us to the topic of pollution. At the time, I
had suggested that American public officials emphasize China's failure
to uphold climate agreements and unacceptable pollution levels. It is
more difficult to make this argument today with regards to electric
vehicles, since Beijing strives to have 40 percent of the vehicles sold
at home be EVs by 2030.\31\ China has also determined that it is in its
own interest to refine its early warning systems and launch ozone
pollution reduction programs by the end of 2025 to address the smog and
air contamination problem it has been facing for several decades.\32\
Whether or not it will succeed in this goal remains to be seen. There
seems, at least, to be some effort on China's side to reduce pollution
and the harm it has done to the planet, though with self-interested
goals in mind, of course. If anything is to be learned from the past
few years, though, it is that if the United States slows down its
industrial production for climate objectives, other countries like
China will not necessarily follow suit. Climate agreements, from
China's eyes, are only valid so long as they benefit Beijing's national
security.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ Jennifer Conrad, ``China is Racing to Electrify its Future,''
WIRED, June 29, 2022, https://www.wired.com/story/china-ev-
infrastructure-charging/.
\32\ ``China aims to eliminate severe air pollution this year,''
Reuters, February 25, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/business/
environment/china-aims-eliminate-severe-air-pollution-this-year-2025-
02-25/.
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My tenth recommendation revolved around the fight against China's
Great Firewall. I commended Wikipedia's battle against Chinese
censorship, but encouraged the United States Government to take the
company's side and boost activity through Radio Free Asia.
Unfortunately, there is little success to report in this regard. Last
year, Radio Free Asia shut off all operations in Hong Kong due to fears
that it would not comply with a security law.\33\ This is
understandable, since the families of Radio Free Asia journalists are
often at risk, especially if they are of Uyghur descent.\34\ But if
Washington isn't able to penetrate the Great Firewall through outlets
like Radio Free Asia, it should devise a concerted soft power or
communications strategy that allows its information to infiltrate into
Chinese society. Why is it that an application like TikTok has divided
American society while no comparative American app like YouTube is able
to convey information to Chinese people? Cracking the code of the Great
Firewall will be one of the most pressing challenges for private
companies assisting Washington.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ David Pierson, ``U.S.-Funded Broadcaster Leaves Hong Kong,
Citing Security Law,'' The New York Times, March 29, 2024, https://
www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/world/asia/hong-kong-security-media.html.
\34\ Jay Nordlinger, ``A Uyghur Daughter, and Journalist,''
National Review, May 4, 2021, https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/a-
uyghur-daughter-and-journalist/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xi Jinping's authoritarian crackdown has made the eleventh step
which I outlined excruciatingly difficult. I had suggested that the
State Department fund more projects to promote the development of the
rule of law and civil society in China. There has, of course, been no
progress in this vein since Beijing strictly monitors State Department
activities and the flow of money going to local initiatives and elected
village officials. This should not prevent the American Embassy in
Beijing from coordinating with Americans involved in the educational
and private sector in China to provide support encouraging pro-
democracy reform (or at least more separation from the CCP) to local
institutions, however difficult that might be.
Finally, although Washington has recognized that China poses a
threat to our global predominance--as stated at the start of my
testimony--we still are dreadfully unfamiliar with the internal debates
happening between the so-called ``hardliners'' and ``reformers'' in
Chinese society. Since Xi runs the country in an authoritarian manner,
we assume that China is a monolith, which disincentivizes us from
having serious discussions in Washington about the disagreements that
divide the CCP regarding China's future. The United States can only
follow the strategies previously outlined--such as creating a
competitiveness strategy--if we are aware of which faction within the
CCP is prevailing at a given time. When the hawks are in power, we can
expect a more violent response from China every time we undertake some
sort of rapprochement with our Asian allies or rid ourselves of Chinese
technology in our military supply chains. Our strategy must be tailored
to the internal dynamics within China, or else we risk missing
opportunities to be more forward-leaning in our approach when reformers
are more prominent in the CCP's leadership.
When we analyze the 12 steps that I proposed in the 100-Year
Marathon, it becomes obvious that we have made little progress in the
past decade. Yes, it is generally recognized in Washington that China
is a threat, but that has translated to little concerted Governmental
action. Instead, the way it currently works is that each agency has
mechanisms to verify whether the United States is funding China or how
Chinese military and economic metrics have changed. There are few
oversight methods that unite every agency and create clear indices
pointing to whether we are beating China in the 100-Year Marathon. Now
that 10 years have passed, it is about time to move from recognition to
action, or else we risk being unable to recover from such a slow start.
______
EXCERPTS FROM THE 12 STEPS IN THE HUNDRED-YEAR MARATHON
It's easy to win a race when you're the only one who knows it has
begun. China is thus on its way to supplanting the United States as the
global hegemon, creating a different world as a result. Yet it doesn't
have to end this way.
step 1--recognize the problem
If America is going to compete in the Marathon, its thinking about
China must change radically. This means recognizing that China is a
competitor, not a welfare case.
step 2--keep track of your gifts
Every year, a small fortune of American tax dollars is being spent
to aid China's rise. Most of this aid is kept low-profile, unnoticed by
the media and the public. This is done intentionally.
Labor Department experts who the U.S. Government had sent to China
to boost Chinese productivity . . . the Treasury Department and the
comptroller of the currency offered China to improve its banking
practices . . . the Federal Aviation Administration's assistance to
Chinese aircraft manufacturers . . . other U.S. Government agencies
have facilitated hundreds of science assistance programs in China.
There is still no available accounting of all the activities funded
by the U.S. Government to aid China. Not only is America funding its
own chief opponent; it doesn't even keep track of how much is being
spent to do it.
To compete in the marathon, Congress should enact an annual
reporting requirement of all agencies and departments of their
assistance to China. If such programs were identified and publicized, 3
beneficial results would follow.
step 3--measure competitiveness
Many of the warring states stories involve carefully measuring the
balance of power before strategies are chosen. It is a classic American
business principle that ``What you measure improves.'' The lesson is
simple but profound: You can't improve unless you know what you need to
improve. You can't come from behind in a race against your competitors
unless you know the respects in which you have fallen behind. Every
year, the Chinese create an annual analysis of their competitiveness
relative to the United States. Why isn't America doing the same thing?
The U.S. Government should be conducting a similar--but more
robust--measure of American competitiveness. The White House should
provide Congress with an annual report that includes trends and
forecasts about how the United States is faring relative to its chief
rivals. Many departments of the U.S. Government, including the
intelligence community, would have to be involved. It need not cover
all other nations, just the top 10--beginning with China.
step 4--develop a competitiveness strategy
Stratagems of the warring states frequently describes how leaders
compete by adopting ``reforms'' to grow their power more rapidly than
their competition. The point was to be open-minded enough to recognize
and act when one's strategy needed to change, and then impose new
tactics to achieve one's desired result.
The public policy analysts Robert Atkinson and Stephen Ezell have
proposed a multiagency program to enhance American competitiveness, but
they fear that it will be hampered or eliminated because of partisan
political considerations.
step 5--find common ground at home
Warring states leaders tried to keep their allies closely aligned
and built ever-shifting coalitions united behind a common goal.
Disunity was dangerous. There are many advocates for reforming American
policy toward China--inside and outside of the U.S. Government--but
they are fractured into factions that often do not see each other as
allies. Since at least 1995, Chinese scholars in Beijing have delighted
in telling me stories of how Americans who criticize U.S. policy toward
China are so divided by their political differences that they never
cooperate.
step 6--build a vertical coalition of nations
There is a reason why China has been expanding its South China Sea
claims, bullying Philippine fishing boats, cutting the cables of
Vietnamese seismic survey ships, and recently establishing an Air
Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea. China wants to
guarantee access to a wealth of natural resources in the region and is
hoping to intimidate its neighbors so they are too scared of China to
unite and oppose its ambitions.
Whether you play wei qi or not, you know that encirclement by a
group of adversaries is dangerous. China's natural fear is that its
neighbors will form such an alliance. That's exactly what the United
States should be encouraging with nations including Mongolia, South
Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. Even the threat of such a
coalition--through movements in that direction--might give Beijing
pause and temper its bellicosity. China knows how America and its
allies contained the Soviet Union. As the United States increases aid
and facilitates cooperation among China's neighbors, China's hawks will
get the blame when China feels isolated and alone in the region.
step 7--protect the political dissidents
Many of the soldiers on the front line of the Cold War were Soviet
and Eastern European dissidents who refused to surrender to an unending
future of censorship, propaganda, religious persecution, and economic
enslavement. Their field marshals were men such as Vaclav Havel, Lech
Walefsa, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. And with their courage and passion
and principles, they brought down the Soviet Union and the Iron
Curtain. But they didn't do it alone. Presidents from Truman to Reagan
championed their cause. When they were imprisoned, American Presidents
demanded their release. When they needed money, Americans sent them
funds. When they needed a platform for the free speech their regimes
denied them, Americans shared their printing presses and broadcast
their battles and beliefs into millions of homes through Radio Free
Europe.
Today China has increased its persecution of Buddhist Tibetans and
Muslim Uighurs. In Tibet, the government has imposed curfews, arrested
protesters, killed innocent civilians, and transformed the region into,
in the recent words of the Dalai Lama, a ``hell on earth.'' In
Xinjiang, the internet and phones are routinely shut off, and the
percentage of Han Chinese in Tibet and Xinjiang has risen dramatically
due to state-sponsored migration.
China also persecutes Christians. It is a common practice in China
for foreigners to show their passports before being allowed to attend a
church service in China. Why? Because China is ruled by the atheistic
Communist Party, and its government wants to keep Chinese nationals out
of non-state-run churches. Many experts estimate that there are 60
million to 100 million Christians in China and that the number is
growing. Bob Fu, the founder and president of China Aid, seeks to equip
the Chinese people to defend their faith and freedom. The
organization's purpose is to promote legal reforms, fund ``house
churches'' in China, and assist imprisoned Christians.
step 8--stand up to anti-american competitive conduct
China is not just a source of cyber spying against the United
States; it is the primary source. According to some estimates, more
than 90 percent of cyber espionage incidents against America originate
in China.\14\ Chinese hackers regularly infiltrate American businesses
and Government entities. An abridged list of victims includes Google,
Booz Allen Hamilton, AT&T, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Visa,
MasterCard, and the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security,
and Energy. Hacking is central to China's decades-long campaign to
steal technologies it can't invent and intellectual property it can't
create. A report by the Commission on the Theft of American
Intellectual Property, led by the former Director of National
Intelligence Dennis Blair and by the former U.S. Ambassador to China
Jon Huntsman, found that the theft of U.S. intellectual property likely
costs the American economy more than $300 billion per year.\15\
step 9--identify and shame polluters
One of the more effective approaches to protecting the environment
with regard to China occurred when Ambassador Huntsman authorized the
U.S. embassy in Beijing to tweet the pollution levels in Beijing.\18\
Similarly, Ma Jun the director of the Institute of Public and
Environmental Affairs, a leading environmental watchdog organization in
China, has compiled on-line maps of China's water, air, and solid waste
pollution.
But is fostering greater awareness the best we can do? The United
States needs to go from asking China to act in an environmentally
responsible way to insisting that China do so, even if that means using
far more leverage than past administrations have been willing to exert.
Otherwise, China will be at a competitive economic advantage--with
Washington constraining American businesses in an effort to protect the
environment while China goes right on exporting its products and its
pollutants at breakneck speed.
step 10--expose corruption and censorship
One of the Chinese government's greatest fears is of a free press.
It knows that sunlight is a disinfectant for wrongdoing, and it is
terrified of what its people would do if they knew the whole truth
about Chinese leaders' corruption, brutality, and history of lying
about the United States and our democratic allies. Yet it remains a
mystery why the United States doesn't do more to fight China's
censorship and propaganda campaigns against the Chinese people.
But the government in Beijing uses its various tools to prohibit
such information from reaching the Chinese people. In 2012 the Chinese
government blocked Bloomberg News after it published a story on the
family wealth of Xi Jinping. The implicit deal of working in China
seems to be this: you may report on China's fantastic growth, but if
you start criticizing the Communist Party or its top officials you will
be kicked out of the country.
During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe was an oasis for anti-
Communist dissidents in a desert of Soviet censorship and propaganda.
There's no reason why Radio Free Asia couldn't serve a similar purpose
in the Hundred-Year Marathon, but its budget needs to be increased at
least 3-fold.
step 11--support pro-democracy reformers
China's concern when it talks about a new Cold War is that the
Americans will revive their Cold War-era programs that helped to
subvert the Soviet Union from within by using the power of ideas. Most
Chinese hawks believe that this plan to subvert Chinese democracy has
already been put into motion, much as it was for the Soviet Union in
1947. At least 2 Chinese books claim the CIA leads it.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has noted that the 1975
Helsinki Accords galvanized pro-democracy groups inside the Soviet
Union and played ``a key role in our winning the Cold War.'' His view
seems to be shared by the hawks of China, who write often about their
fear that the United States has mounted a program to influence
impressionable future civilian Chinese leaders to move toward
democratic multi-party elections and a free market.\30\ In October
2013, China's hawks revealed another fear--that America is seeking out
a Chinese Gorbachev-like figure, a leader who will bring 1-party rule
to an end. The hawks' distrust of China's own leaders is shown in the
tone of a 90-minute video released in October 2013 called Silent
Contest.\31\ China's hawks fear their civilian leaders are susceptible
to influence from Western leaders who want to see multi-party rule and
an evolution toward democracy.
The truth is that there is no such concerted effort by the United
States or the West to subvert China's Communist Party rule. The annual
spending on programs to support democracy in China is less than $50
million.\33\ While the U.S. Government has some underfunded civil
society programs, they are not CIA covert actions, and they are small
in scale compared to what will be needed. There are at least 6 such
programs, originating during the Cold War and run by various American
organizations with U.S. Government funds, including the AFL-CIO, the
Chamber of Commerce, and both major U.S. political parties. They
provide funding for a wide range of Chinese organizations inside China
as well as for exile groups.\34\
step 12--monitor and influence the debates between china's hawks and
reformers
Today, as China pursues its own Cold War strategy against America,
it monitors carefully various factions in Washington, DC--those who are
supporters of Beijing and those who are skeptics, those who can be
manipulated and those who have caught on to the marathon strategy.
America used to be good at this, too. During the Cold War, the United
States invested time, technology, and personnel into discerning the
activities among various members of the Soviet Politburo--those who
advocated a more harmonious relationship with America and those who
viewed the United States as a dangerous rival that must be overtaken.
Yet unlike our activities against the Soviets, America is far behind
when it comes to China.
It is crucial that the United States possess an understanding of
the various actors in Beijing's sensitive internal debates. Though the
marathon strategy is moving apace, the Chinese government is not
monolithic in its thinking. Hard-liners are certainly in the majority,
but on the margins there are still sincere advocates of reform and
liberalization who want a China that moves closer to an American-style
model. They exist, and they must be identified and supported. The
problem is that the U.S. intelligence community has not invested in the
resources to determine who those true reformers are--as differentiated
from the many Chinese leaders who make misleading reformist claims.
This remains a massive intelligence challenge.
James Lilley, a former U.S. Ambassador to China and a 27-year
veteran of the CIA testified in August 2001, 12 years after the
Tiananmen Square massacre. Lilley told a Congressional commission that
his greatest regret was learning a decade too late about internal
Chinese documents revealing just how far China had moved toward
democracy and how close the protests came to removing the Communist
government. If only he had known at the time, the former Ambassador
said, he would have urged President George H. W. Bush to intervene
firmly on the side of the real reformers, rather than being deceived by
Beijing's leadership into siding with it.
Mr. Guest. Thank you, Dr. Pillsbury.
I now recognize Mr. Evanina for 5 minutes to summarize his
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM R. EVANINA, FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, THE EVANINA GROUP
Mr. Evanina. Acting Chairman Guest, Ranking Member
Thompson, Members of the committee, it's an honor to be here
today with my esteemed guests.
September 11, 2001, our Nation was attacked by committed
terrorists. As a Nation, we were not prepared for this attack
or how it would impact every aspect of American life for
decades to come.
As a special agent in the FBI that day, I was part of the
investigation of Flight 93. On that day and throughout my
entire law enforcement and intelligence career, I often ask
myself, ``How did we not see this coming?''
Maybe we could've prevented it. We saw the lights blinking.
As a Nation, we worked tirelessly for 25 years to prevent that
from happening again. We were committed.
Today, our Nation faces an array of sophisticated diverse
threats by terror organizations, cyber criminals, and nation-
state threat actors. I proffer to you, the greatest threat to
our Nation emanates from the Communist Party of China.
This threat is existential. It is complex, pernicious, and
strategic with the U.S. private sector and academia the main
battlefield. Xi Jinping drives a comprehensive and whole-of-
country approach to the CCP's efforts to invest, leverage,
infiltrate, paralyze, influence, and steal from every aspect
and every corner of America.
As this committee is aware, the economic loss of theft of
intellectual property and trade secrets, just from the
Communist Party of China, is estimated between $300 billion and
$600 billion per year.
To make that more relevant to everyone in this room, as the
acting Chairman mentioned, it's about $4,000 to $6,000 per year
per American family of 4 after taxes.
Additionally, it's estimated that 80 percent of all
Americans have had all of their personal data stolen by the
Communist Party of China in the past decade. The other 20
percent, just most of it.
Data has become the new goal in the world. The CCP's
priorities to collect it are second-to-none like we've ever
seen. As we all know, data is the bedrock, fundamental purpose
for all artificial intelligence creation.
Layering on to our economic hemorrhaging is the
unprecedented Volt and Salt Typhoon hacks which continue to
persist in our critical infrastructure and telecommunications
sectors respectively.
The CCP's recent actions also include sophisticated
surveillance balloons, technical surveillance stations in Cuba,
maritime port control, strategic land purchases near military
bases, fentanyl, TikTok, malign foreign influence at the local
level, et cetera.
Altogether, the collage begins to paint a bleak picture far
beyond blinking red. Our current domestic vulnerability is
unacceptable. The blinking lights are clear.
I believe we must approach this existential threat with the
same sense of urgency, leadership, spending, and strategy, as
we have done for the past 2 decades in defeating and preventing
terrorism.
I would ask this committee, is it not a terrorism when our
electrical grid or natural gas pipeline is disabled or damaged
via Volt Typhoon malware? That will result in millions of
households, hospitals, and buildings being without heat or
electricity.
What about when our telecommunications infrastructure, to
include Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, are all being disabled on the
same day due to an organized cyber attack precipitated by Salt
Typhoon?
If our financial services sector was impacted and had to go
off-line just for a few hours, it would cause immeasurable
harm, as well as significant domestic and international chaos,
societal panic, and disruption we have not seen since 9/11.
Are these not terrorism-type events? If these events
incidentally occur on the same day as the CCP makes their
inevitable move on Taiwan, are we even ready as a Nation to
handle the paralysis and chaos the CCP will cause from every
aspect of our American life in commerce, health, safety, and
the way we live every day?
The CCP has strategically planned and implemented the
ability to do just this, all at once, and all across our
homeland, from our ports to our electrical grid.
Additionally, every aspect of these actions has a planned
impact on societal chaos and panic; it is an integral part of
the CCP's plan and strategy.
Hence, ``terrorism'' and ``terror'' must be redefined
beyond our framework where we historically look at kinetic
actions that harmed or killed our loved ones. The inability or
unwillingness to look behind this curtain and visualize this
clear, realistic scenario is no longer an option for anyone.
In fact, the proverbial curtain no longer exists. Our
Nation needs strategic leadership now more than ever. Time is
of the essence.
Additionally, this will take a whole-of-country approach.
This approach starts here with the U.S. Congress. We all see
the blinking lights clearly. I offer a nationwide call to
action, committing to reduce the brightness, reduce the cadence
of these very clear and blinking lights.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Evanina follows:]
Prepared Statement of William R. Evanina
March 5, 2025
Chairman Green, Ranking Member Thompson, and Members of the
committee--it's an honor to appear before you today.
I have spent 32 years working in the U.S. Government, 24 of which
as a special agent with the FBI, and as chief of counterespionage at
the CIA.
I was tremendously honored to serve as the first Senate-confirmed
director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC)
in May 2020, leading our Nation's counterintelligence and security
efforts. I served in that role since 2014.
I am here before you today as the CEO of The Evanina Group, LLC. In
this role, I work closely with CEOs, boards of directors, and academic
institutions, and senior executives of the U.S. Government to provide a
strategic approach to mitigating corporate risk in a complicated global
environment.
a domestic threat landscape overview
EXISTENTIAL THREAT
Our Nation continues to face an array of diverse, complex,
sophisticated, and unprecedented threats by nation-state actors, cyber
criminals, and terrorist organizations.
Unquestionably, the existential threat our Nation emanates from the
Communist Party of China (CCP). This comprehensive threat posed by the
CCP is the most complex, pernicious, strategic, and aggressive threat
our Nation has ever faced. It is an existential threat to every fabric
of our great Nation. Now, more than ever, the private sector and
academia have become the modern battlefield for which Xi's holistic
efforts manifest.
Xi Jinping has one overarching goal to be the geopolitical,
military, and economic leader in the world. Xi, along with China's
Ministry of State Security (MSS), People's Liberation Army (PLA), and
the United Front Work Department (UFWD), drive a comprehensive and
whole-of-country approach to their efforts to invest, leverage,
infiltrate, influence, and steal from every corner of the United
States. This is a generational battle for Xi and China's Communist
Party (CCP), it drives their every decision.
REAL COSTS OF ECONOMIC LOSS
The estimated economic loss from the theft of intellectual property
and trade secrets, just from the CCP, and just from known and
identified efforts, is estimated between $300 billion and $600 billion
per year (Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Federal Bureau of
Investigation).
To make it personal for you and your constituents, this theft
equates to approximately $4,000 to $6,000 per year, per American family
of 4 . . . after taxes.
China's ability to holistically obtain our intellectual property
and trade secrets via illegal, legal, and sophisticated hybrid methods
is like nothing we have ever witnessed. Actually, it is said by many to
be the largest theft of intellectual property in the history of the
world . . . and it has happened just in the past decade.
Additionally, it is estimated that 80 percent of American adults
have had all of their personal data stolen by the CCP, and the other 20
percent has had most of their personal data stolen. For Xi, the
overarching vison is how to counter, compete, and push past the United
States is goal No. 1.
TERRORISM REDEFINED
Congress, and the entire American democratic and capitalistic
ecosystems, must first clearly understand Xi's reprehensible intentions
in order to effectively mitigate the accompanying threat with our own
whole-of-society approach.
We must approach this existential threat with the same sense of
urgency, spending, and strategy, as we have done for the past 24 years
in preventing terrorism in our homeland.
To set the perspective, a simple definition of terrorism is ``the
use of threats or violence to achieve political or ideological goals.''
I would offer to this committee that we are in a terrorism event. A
slow, methodical, strategic, persistent, and enduring event which
requires an increased degree of urgency of both Government and
corporate action. It is clear that under Xi Jinping, the CCP's economic
war with the United States has manifested itself into a clear terrorism
type of framework.
Let me be more specific. The CCP's capabilities and intent are
second to none as an adversary. Cyber breaches, insider threats,
surveillance and penetrations into our critical infrastructure have all
been widely reported. Adding in the CCP's crippling stranglehold on so
many aspects of our supply chain and the result is a montage of
domestic vulnerability of unacceptable proportions.
Recent nefarious and disturbing areas of the CCP's actions include
VOLT and SALT TYPHOON, surveillance balloons, technical surveillance
stations in Cuba, maritime cranes, Huawei, TikTok, strategic land
purchases near military and strategic locations, influence at the State
and local level, etc. When overlapped, the collage begins to paint a
bleak mosaic which is beyond the blinking red metaphor. It is
imperative to understand that the CCP maintains civil unrest and
societal chaos as a primary pillar in any nefarious cyber penetration
or attack.
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE
I would ask this committee: Is it not terrorism when our electrical
grid or a natural gas pipeline is disabled via VOLT TYPHOON in a part
of the United States, resulting in millions of households, schools,
hospitals, and buildings being without heat or electricity? What about
when our telecommunications infrastructure (e.g., Verizon, AT&T, and T-
Mobile) being disabled on the same day due an organized cyber attack,
precipitated by SALT TYPHOON? And if our financial services sector was
impacted and had to go off-line, for even a few hours, it would cause
significant domestic and international chaos, societal panic, and
disruption.
Are these not terror-type events? If these events coincidently
occur as the CCP makes their inevitable move on Taiwan, will the
American people, and U.S. policy makers for that matter, have the
sufficient appetite to actually defend Taiwan?
The CCP has strategically planned and implemented the ability to do
just this, all at once, and all across our homeland. Hence, ``terror''
must be redefined beyond our framework which historically includes
loved ones being injured or killed from a kinetic event.
The inability or unwillingness to look behind the curtain and
visualize this clear and realistic scenario is no longer an option for
anyone, especially the Congress, the administration, U.S. Governmental
entities, academic institutions, and especially the private sector. In
fact, the proverbial curtain to look behind no longer exists. We must
immediately end the process of being victims to the CCP's actions.
SALT TYPHOON
The largest telecommunications hack, in the world, occurred in
2024. It occurred here, in the United States, by CCP-backed hackers,
against the top 9 U.S.-based telecommunications carriers and hardware
providers. The size and scope of this brazen hack has not yet been
determined and will take extensive time to do so. This successful hack
by the CCP provided comprehensive call and text data of subscribers,
geolocation of the subscribers, and ability to listen to telephone
conversations as they deemed interested. Per public reporting, the
intent of the breach was to obtain court-ordered warrant data issued to
the carriers by the U.S. Government on Chinese targets. Similar to the
OPM breach, the CCP succeeded beyond their dreams and intentions. It is
much worse than that, but that is for a closed session with your U.S.
Government agencies.
As an intelligence and law enforcement professional, I am beyond
concerned with this access for all the obvious intelligence and
counterintelligence-gathering aspects. Additionally, the thought that a
foreign adversary and competitor can access metadata call information
and listen to conversations, is beyond astonishing, and very
disheartening. As Members of this committee are fully aware, for this
to happen here, legally in the United States, a FISA or Title 3 court
order, signed by a U.S. Magistrate Judge or FISA Court would be
required.
FENTANYL
Let us take a look at the fentanyl epidemic. Members of this
Committee are very familiar with the epidemic and the numbers. But it
is important to revisit and place into comparison perspective.
Thankfully we have recently seen a significant reduction in deaths
caused by fentanyl overdoses. However, with over 200 Americans dying of
fentanyl overdose every day (107k+ in '23), China's effect is analogous
to a Boeing 737 aircraft crashing, every day, and killing everyone on
board. The fentanyl epidemic is delivering the same casualty rate
within the United States as Germany and Japan delivered to American
soldiers in World War II. Currently, fentanyl overdoses per day are 50
percent greater than the World War I Killed-in-Action per day count.
Let that sink in. And as Members of this committee are already aware,
most of the fentanyl precursors are manufactured in China. The fentanyl
epidemic starts, and ends, with the CCP.
MARITIME PORTS
Specific adversaries (Russia/China) have been historically creative
in embedding intelligence collection capabilities into products which
have a legitimate use in business, commerce, technology, or operating
systems (see Kaspersky Labs). The CCP has taken this concept to
increasingly strategic, and potentially paralyzing levels.
The new frontier, in my opinion, is the legitimate procurement by
U.S. port terminals of Chinese-manufactured (Shanghai Shenhua Heavy
Industries Company, Limited) ZPMC crane systems.
ZPMC is a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company
(CCCC). CCCC is a prominent contractor for the Peoples Liberation Army
and Navy. Members of the committee are aware that it is currently
estimated that approximately 80 percent of all of the ship-to-shore
goods and services entering, and exiting, the United States are
offloaded/loaded via Chinese-owned ZPMC crane systems. Additionally,
these same ZPMC crane systems are used by the U.S. military to
commission our Naval and Coast Guard vessels at numerous strategic
ports.
ZPMC cranes offer the CCP a dual-use capability for intelligence
collection (cameras, sensors, tracking technology, connected software)
in U.S. ports servicing heavy commercial activity as well as U.S.
military bases. The ZPMC crane systems provide a supply chain
vulnerability of potentially paralyzing proportions. There is
interconnectivity among all the ZPMC crane systems nationwide, and
shared Chinese-developed software and labor. ZPMC, if ordered by the
CCP, can immediately shut down maritime port operations throughout the
United States in a time of conflict or to utilize a future economic
lever.
Additionally, other elements of the product transportation supply
chain are also required to enter into these contracts, including data-
sharing agreements, and software collaboration while working at a U.S.
maritime port ecosystem in order to interface with ZPMC cranes and
technology.
When the ZPMC crane system threat is stacked onto the VOLT TYPHOON
cyber malware penetration, the CCP will be able to systematically, and
without delay, cause instant havoc in almost every aspect of American
daily operations, commerce, and safety, and at the same time instill a
level of societal and business panic not seen since September 1, 2001.
In my professional opinion, and from a civilian and military
perspective, this might be the CCP's most strategic operational
endeavor against the United States thus far, outdistancing Huawei. We
cannot allow it to be their most successful.
INSIDER THREAT
The insider threat problem, originating from the CCP, has been
nothing short of devastating to the U.S. corporate world, academic
institutions, and research and development organizations in the past
decade, plus. The Department of Justice's web site's catalog of
economic espionage indictments and convictions is staggering. The
result is hard to swallow and quantify. And those listed cases only
represent what was identified, reported by a U.S. company, and then
prosecuted.
We need to continually highlight this issue as a key facilitator
for the CCP's strategic endeavors to steal intellectual property and
trade secrets, especially those developed before they are classified by
the U.S. Government, as well as the CCP's strategic placement for
human-enabled cyber operations.
Corporate America and academia must make significant efforts to
identify and mitigate insider threats to their organizations seeking to
steal and/or do harm. It starts with a more substantive vetting process
of applicants and incorporation of an insider threat or employee
wellness program. It is too costly not to. The impacts ripple far
beyond the victim company.
HOW DOES THE THREAT MANIFEST?
Intelligence services, joint ventures, science and technology
investments, academic collaboration, research partnerships, front
companies, mergers and acquisitions, and outright theft via insiders
and cyber intrusions, initiate the comprehensive and strategic
framework for how China implements their strategy.
China continues to successfully utilize ``non-traditional''
collectors to conduct a plurality of their nefarious efforts here in
the United States due to their successful ability to hide in plain
sight. The non-traditional collectors, serving as engineers,
businesspersons, academics, IT professionals, and students, are
shrouded in legitimate work and research. Oftentimes, the ``non-
traditional'' collector becomes an unwitting tool for the CCP and its
intelligence collection apparatus.
China's ability to holistically obtain our Intellectual Property
(IP) and Trade Secrets via illegal, legal, and sophisticated hybrid
methods is beyond demoralizing. Joint ventures, creative investments
into our Federal, State, and local pension programs, collaborative
academic engagements, Sister City Programs, Confucius Institutes, and
similar programs on university campuses, talent recruitment programs,
investments in emerging technologies, and utilization of front
companies, continue to be the framework for strategically acquiring the
thoughts and ideas of our researchers, as well as development of those
ideas pre- and post-patent application.
ACADEMIA A LEADING TARGET
The threat posed by China to U.S academia, as well as research
institutions (including Federal), is deep, pervasive, and decades-long.
The past decade of indictments and prosecutions have highlighted the
insidiousness of China's approach to obtaining early and advanced
scientific research and data.
Additionally, China has expertly learned and manipulated the
complexity and shrouding of gifts and funding at U.S. colleges and
universities, particularly when tied to Federal grants. On-going
academic partnerships by U.S. universities with CCP cultural programs
(Confucius Institutes) and CCP-funded research institutions is
increasingly problematic, and one-sided.
For example, the University of Michigan, and other universities,
recently severed ties with China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University
(SJTU). SJTU has historically been tied to the CCP's intelligence and
cyber hacking programs. The University of Michigan's brave and bold
decision was only possible after the university was provided briefings,
intelligence, and data as to the nefarious history and activities of
SJTU by this Congress, and the FBI.
Universities need to be sufficiently advised of on-going threats
and risk in order to make sound risk-based decisions on said
partnerships. Additionally, universities who continue to engage in
these CCP partnerships with known nefarious activities need to be held
accountable for such relationships.
There is a clear void in this problem set which requires immediate
fixing. The U.S. Government, specifically the FBI, NSA, DHS, and
others, must be forward-leaning in dissemination of known threat
intelligence to academia and research institutions. Such effort is
critical to enable immediate and strategic risk-based mitigation
decisions to protect not only ideation and trusted development of
intellectual property, but also individual university brands.
This is increasingly important as we are in a high-speed technology
race with China and cannot afford for China's continuance of easy theft
and hence, not earning their place in this critical 21st Century
competition for technology dominance. I address this further in my
recommendations.
ACADEMIC DUE DILIGENCE AND COMPLIANCE
U.S. academic and research institutes must engage in rigorous due
diligence and compliance programs. I spend a considerable amount of
business with academic institutions advising and informing them on due
diligence and compliance efforts to identify and mitigate potential
areas of concern with foreign students, professors, and researchers.
Recently, an executive of a very prestigious U.S. university stated:
``I assumed the Department of State vetted these students prior to
coming on campus. What do you want us to do?'' This assumption, and
related question, is very common and very problematic.
The United States possesses the greatest catalog of academic and
research institutions and entities the world has ever seen. The United
States continues to not only be the leaders in the world, but with
such, we attract the best and brightest from around the world. The
collaborative nature of academia is primary to its success; however, it
is also its greatest vulnerability.
Vetting of foreign national students, faculty and research, if it
occurs, is nascent at best, and in just a few institutions. The dilemma
and complexity I hear from institutions is understandable. However, we
can no longer continue to allow the CCP to obtain the ideation, hard
work, research, and patent-ready results, from U.S. academic and
research institutions without any effort to defend such.
This situation is also similar to U.S. Government entities such as
the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation,
Department of Energy, National Labs, and so many others. To ensure
security of our hard work and related product, compliance and due
diligence must be a priority if we have any chance at slowing down the
CCP from obtaining classified, and unclassified, research with minimal
difficulty.
INDUSTRIES LEADING AS TARGETS
China's key priorities for obtaining U.S.-based technology and
know-how, pursuant to their publicly-available ``Made in China 25
Plan'' are Aerospace, Deep Sea Technology, Biotechnology, Information
Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy, Electric Battery
Technology, and DNA/Genomics.
Any CEO or board of directors engaged in any of these critical
industries, and within the vertical supply chain, must understand the
threat posed to them and work to identify risk-based mitigation
strategies. This is a zero-sum game.
``Military-Civil Fusion'' is undoubtably a strategy employed by the
CCP to drive Xi's movement to global technological and military
dominance. However, it is too often viewed through a Western-based
filter and related bias. In China, there is no fusion of military and
civilian efforts. They are ONE, working together, and in unison. Unlike
the U.S.- and other Western-based democratic nations, there does not
exist a bifurcation between government, military, and the private
sector. I would even include the education ecosystem in this mosaic.
There is one China. Xi's China. Everything, and everyone, works toward
a common goal in China, which is the betterment of China.
Additionally, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and Ministry of
State Security (MSS) have never been so collaboratively intertwined
with respect to common goals and aggressiveness of action as they have
been the past 5 to 10 years. If the PLA needs a specific technology for
military capability to copy or reverse engineer, the MSS will acquire
it through any means necessary and will employ every legal, and
illegal, tool as referenced earlier, in obtaining the necessary
technology.
CHINA DOES NOT PLAY BY ANY RULES
China plays by their own rules, only. China does not conform to any
international or normalized set of regulations, guidelines, norms,
laws, or value-based agreements throughout the global economic
ecosystem.
To further the CCP's unlevel economic playing field, out of the 15
largest companies inside China, 13 are either owned by the CCP, or run
by the CCP. The world has seen recently what the CCP is capable of when
one of the largest companies in the world, Alibaba, pushes back on
state-run efforts. Additionally, many of the CCP's largest corporate
leaders and CEO's have gone missing.
Boards of directors and investment leaders must begin to think
strategically about what the long-term threat impact the CCP presents
and how their investments, decisions, and unawareness of the long-term
threat impact their respective businesses and industries. This threat
is woven with our national security, economic stability, and endurance
of our republic. As a Nation, and if we truly want to compete with
China, we must move toward a more intertwined risk-based intelligence
sharing effort between the U.S. Government, corporate America, and
academic institutions.
CHINA'S NEED TO KNOW LAWS
In 2017, the Communist Party of China issued new state laws to
facilitate the perniciousness of their efforts to obtain data, from
everywhere, and in any way. Three specific portions of these laws
should be understood, and be an enduring reminder to CEOs, general
counsels, chief data officers, CIOs, CSOs, and CISOs, throughout our
private-sector ecosystems.
The first is Article 7 of the People's Republic of China National
Intelligence Law summarily stating that all business and citizens shall
cooperate with China's intelligence services and shall protect all
national work secrets.
The second is Article 77 of the same National Security Law
summarily stating that Chinese citizens and business shall provide
anything required or requested by the Chinese government or
intelligence services.
The third is Article 28 of the 2016 Cybersecurity Law summarily
stating that all network operators must provide data to, and anything
requested by, national, military, or public security authorities.
These laws carry with every Chinese citizen whether they reside in
Beijing, or anywhere else in the world, regardless of their employer.
Hence, a Chinese national working at a U.S. company is always at risk
for answering to the CCP's data collection apparatus.
YOUR DATA IS CHINA'S DATA
As a cautionary tale, if you are a U.S. business seeking to enter a
business relationship with a company in, or from, China, your data will
be obtained and provided to the MSS or PLA for their usage, without
exception. This includes any third-party data as well. The analogy is a
U.S.-based company entered into a business deal or partnership with a
company from another country. In order to do business, the U.S. company
would be required to provide all relevant and requested data from their
company, as well as the partner company, to their customer agency, such
as the NSA, CIA, and FBI. To reiterate, the operational and legal tempo
of the CCP is difficult to visualize and understand while looking
through Western and democratic lenses. There is no bifurcation between
the CCP and corporate ecosystem. It is one China.
MALIGN INFLUENCE
Malign foreign influence has increased dramatically in the United
States in the past decade. Russia, China, and others have been very
active in this activity and with varying degrees of success. Measuring
such activity has proven to be not a perfect science.
China is strategic and precise as they successfully influence at
the State and local levels of the United States. I want to briefly
touch on a few key areas.
The first is economic investment. Chinese investments in key
industries such as real estate, agriculture, advanced manufacturing,
and technology have raised significant concerns. These partnerships
often take the form of ``Sister City Programs but can also be business
partnerships between a city or small town and a CCP-owned or -
controlled company. Investments in U.S. critical infrastructure at the
local level is also on the rise which creates an entire separate
category of concern.
The CCP takes advantage of small towns and cities increasing need
for economic solicitation of funds. CCP partnerships with Economic
Development professionals provides the most immediate and impactful
results. The town, or city, receive immediate investment and the CCP
obtains a foothold, access, or future opportunity for strategic
purposes. Local Economic Development professionals have no idea of the
ultimate purpose or intent of such a partnership.
Political donations and lobbying are another serious concern. The
CCP's strategic approach to identify current, and future, political
leaders and elected officials and invest in their future continues to
be problematic. The investment can take form in direct financial
support to a campaign, lobbying, or placing CCP loyalists into the
inner circle of an elected official to influence decision making to
benefit CCP interests or individuals supporting CCP efforts.
The most common initial step is the official invite of a newly-
elected Federal, State, or local official for an all-expense paid trip
to China with family and friends where the CCP will offer investments
and inexpensive solutions to the elected official's economic
challenges. As well, the CCP will gain access to the elected official's
mobile devices.
The obvious and immediate need is to have a platform where State
and local (and even Federal) elected officials can receive substantive
training and awareness of how these issues manifest in their State,
city, or township.
THE NEED FOR STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
In closing, I would like to thank this committee for acknowledging
the significant threat posed by China by holding this hearing.
Continuing to drive awareness, and more importantly, combat the threat
posed by the CCP will take a whole-of-nation approach with a mutual-
fund-type long-term commitment. Such an approach must start with robust
and contextual awareness campaigns, like this committee holding this
hearing. The WHY matters.
Regarding these awareness campaigns, we must be specific and reach
a broad audience, from State and local governments to academia, from
board rooms to business schools, educating on how China's actions
impair our competition by obtaining our research and development, trade
secrets and intellectual property, and degrading our ability to
maintain our role as economic global leaders.
Our Nation needs strategic leadership now more than ever,
particularly when we face such an existential threat from a capable
competitor who is looking beyond competition to global dominance. We
have to catch up, mitigate, and inflict costs on China in an expedited
fashion. Doing such will entail strategic leadership leading a whole-
of-society approach is imperative.
Last, I would like to state for the record the significant national
security threat we face from the Communist Party of China is NOT a
threat posed by Chinese people, as individuals. This is an issue
pertaining to a communist country, with an autocratic dictator who is
committed to human rights violations and will stop at nothing to
achieve his goals. As a Nation, we must put the same effort into this
threat as we did for the terrorism threat. The threat from China,
particularly with respect to the long-term existential threat is hard
to see and feel, but I would suggest it is as dangerous, if not more
dangerous, than terrorism to our viability as a Nation.
recommendations
The holistic and existential threat posed by the CCP is one of the
few bipartisan areas of agreement in the U.S. Congress today. We must,
as a Nation, compete at the highest level possible while at the same
time understand the gravity and urgency, and what is at stake.
Below are some recommendations:
1. Implement an aggressive real time and actionable threat sharing
by the U.S. Government with private sector. Create an Economic
Threat Intelligence entity which delivers actionable, real-time
threat information to CEOs, boards of directors, State and
local economic councils to enable risk-based decision making on
investments and partnerships. This intelligence delivery
mechanism should include the intelligence community, FBI,
Department of Commerce, Department of Treasury, and CISA. The
core constituency should be State and local entities at risk
and utilize existing vehicles such National Governors
Association and the Chamber of Commerce to increase threat
awareness of illicit activities investment risk at the State
and local level.
2. Congress must ensure U.S. Government agencies are leaning
aggressively forward in providing collected intelligence to
corporate America pertaining to plans and intentions, as well
as nation-state activities, in software, coding, supply chain
and zero-day capabilities. The U.S. Government must be more
effective in providing intelligence expeditiously to the
private sector. Enhanced declassification of collected
intelligence (especially in the technology arena) with respect
to threats to our economic well-being, industries, and
companies must be delivered at speed to impacted entities prior
to the threat becoming realized.
3. Maintain bipartisan Congressionally-led public hearings to
advise and inform CEOs, governors, and boards of directors in
critical economic, research, and manufacturing sectors of the
threat posed by the CCP, and how they are targeted.
4. Create a panel of CEOs who can advise and inform Congress and
U.S. Government entities on perspectives, challenges, and
obstacles in the investment arena and private-sector supply
chain dilemmas. I would recommend a Business Round Table type
of framework. Membership should be diverse and include but not
be limited to the following sectors: Financial Services,
Telecommunications, Energy, Bio Pharmaceutical, Manufacturing,
Aerospace, Transportation, Private Equity, and Venture Capital.
This entity should be co-chaired by a CEO from the above group.
5. Establish an over-the-horizon panel to discuss, in a public
forum, emerging technology which may potentially pose a long-
term threat (AI/ML, Quantum, Aerospace) to the long-term
economic well-being of America. The first topic should take a
close look at the strategic investments the CCP is making into
State and local pension plans, CCP's strategic land purchases,
Sovereign Funds, as well as foreign investment into the Federal
Thrift Savings Plan and other State/local retirements vehicles.
6. Reestablish the National Security Higher Education Advisory
Board (NSHEAB). This board should have 25 college and
university Presidents as members with a chair and co-chair and
be housed and facilitated by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation in partnership with the CIA and NSA. All members
will be provided security clearances at the Top-Secret level in
order to be provided real-time threat and awareness information
the U.S. Government possess to help guide academia in risk-
based decisions and partners. This entity existed until the FBI
closed the program in 2014.
7. Create a National Training Center for elected officials. This
center will provide baseline training to newly-elected
officials and their staff on what malign influence looks like
(examples of recent situations) and how to best mitigate such
efforts. Additionally, what will surely occur on your first
trip to China as an elected official, particularly with your
mobile devices.
8. Create a platform where each Governor of the United States can
establish his/her own CIFIUS-Lite program to identify and
mitigate nefarious economic investments and land purchases
within their respective States. This framework will provide
intel and data sharing from the Treasury Department's CIFIUS
Program, the FBI, DHS, and other law enforcement and
intelligence entities to assist individual U.S. States on what
to look, how such nefarious activity manifests at the local
level, and how to most effectively mitigate.
Again, I am honored to be here today and thank the committee for
holding this hearing to better understand and mitigate the existential
risk posed the CCP to our national security.
Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Evanina.
I now recognize Mr. Singleton for 5 minutes to summarize
his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF CRAIG SINGLETON, SENIOR FELLOW AND CHINA PROGRAM
SENIOR DIRECTOR, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Mr. Singleton. Acting Chairman Guest, Ranking Member
Thompson, and distinguished Members of this committee, thank
you for inviting me to testify today. I'm pleased to offer
policy insights from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,
a nonpartisan research institute where I serve as a senior
fellow.
Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping has declared
technological innovation the, quote, main battlefield in
China's quest for global preeminence.
For Xi, Chinese-style modernization is not merely an
economic goal. It's a historic mandate with grave implications
for U.S. national security.
In seeking to dominate what he calls China's new productive
forces--breakthroughs in batteries, biotech, LiDAR drones,
robotics, and other cutting-edge technologies, Xi seeks to
cement Chinese control over the drivers of the next industrial
revolution.
In doing so, Xi intends to transform China into a global
science superpower. Yet Xi's strategy is predicated on a
glaring vulnerability. It depends, in part, on sustained access
to U.S. capital markets and advanced technology, as well as
near-unfettered reach into American data and critical
infrastructure systems.
On this front, U.S. policy makers must act decisively and
without delay.
Xi's broader technological ambitions underpin China's
military-civil fusion strategy, a doctrine that breaks down
barriers between the People's Liberation Army and China's
civilian institutions, including Chinese universities and
ostensibly private Chinese companies.
This fusion accelerates the transfer of scientific
innovations directly into China's defense and intelligence
sectors, ensuring that Chinese military capabilities evolve in
lockstep with civilian progress.
Here at home, Beijing's strategy unfolds in 3 interlocking
phases. First, Chinese actors relentlessly penetrate U.S.
networks and critical infrastructure, harvesting vast troves of
sensitive data in the process.
Recently exposed Chinese state-sponsored hacking
campaigns--Salt, Volt, and Flax Typhoon--reveal how Beijing
exploits software vulnerabilities, implants malicious code, and
maintains persistent back doors.
More than a year after these breaches became public,
Chinese hackers still enjoy near-persistent access to U.S.
telecommunications networks, with Washington yet to impose any
meaningful costs.
But hacking and data theft are just the opening gambit.
Beijing's secondary goal is to systematically preposition
itself within our networks to degrade or disrupt them at
critical junctures, both in peace and in conflict.
By embedding compromised Chinese--compromised cranes in
U.S. ports, Chinese-made LiDAR devices in traffic control, or
drones that seamlessly integrate with civilian and military
operations, Beijing gains a silent veto over our crisis
response.
Whether through biotech innovations or batteries powering
our grid, each dependency transforms market reliance into a
strategic liability. In times of tension, the mere suspicion
that these systems might be sabotaged could erode confidence,
delay U.S. responses, and undermine our deterrent posture.
Third, China profits from this dual approach. Chinese high-
tech exports, from advanced sensors and biotech to drones and
surveillance cameras, generate billions in revenue every year
for Beijing.
This revenue is funneled back into military-civil fusion
programs, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of power.
What's more, by converting market access into geopolitical
leverage, the CCP has weaponized Western dependence on its
technologies, thereby undercutting U.S. competitiveness.
In response to these provocations, it's vital that policy
makers act with both urgency and clarity. By levying meaningful
penalties, including robust outbound investment screening,
targeted export controls, and stringent procurement bands on
high-risk Chinese technologies, Washington can deny Xi the
leverage he seeks and compel China to reassess its aggressive
posture.
If we fail to act, every hacked network, every compromised
supply chain, and every dependency engineered by Beijing only
heightens our vulnerability to disruption, sabotage, or even
systemic failure during a crisis.
In many respects, today's predicament recalls the late
stages of the Cold War when Washington's misguided embrace of
peaceful coexistence inadvertently prolonged the Soviet
system's survival, treating it as an immutable juggernaut
rather than one susceptible to sustained internal and external
pressure.
By minimizing accountability for Chinese espionage,
coercion, and violations of international norms, we risk
reinforcing Beijing's conviction that its revanchist ambitions
need not be curbed.
We, therefore, must act and shift from a misguided policy
rooted in reflexive de-escalation to one of assertive reprisal,
from passive co-existence with China to purposeful competition
on America's terms.
On behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, I
thank you again for inviting me to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Singleton follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Guest. Thank you Mr. Singleton.
I now recognize Dr. Doshi for 5 minutes to summarize his
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF RUSH DOSHI, PH.D., PRIVATE CITIZEN
Mr. Doshi. Chairman Guest, Ranking Member Thompson,
distinguished Members of the subcommittee, thank you very much
for the opportunity to testify at today's hearing. I'll focus
my remarks on some of the challenges China poses to Homeland
Security.
Three questions: First, what are Beijing's ambitions;
second, how does it threaten homeland security and the cyber
domain; and, third, how does it threaten homeland security with
respect to transnational crime?
So, first, what are Beijing's ambitions?
The PRC has a grand strategy to displace U.S.-led order. It
seeks to, quote, catch up and surpass the U.S. technologically
to make the world dependent on China's supply chains
economically, and to acquire the capability to defeat U.S.
forces militarily.
It's a capable rival too. It's the leading industrial power
with more than 30 percent of all global manufacturing. It's
pursuing military bases around the world and in our backyard,
and it's the first U.S. competitor to surpass 70 percent of
U.S. GDP.
The second question: How does the PRC threaten homeland
security?
Well, PRC cyber actors have compromised sensitive U.S.
networks with multiple objectives. First, they want American
personal data. In the last decade, the PRC has hacked the
Office of Personnel Management, Equifax, Marriott, Anthem
Health Insurance, and multiple airlines, compromising hundreds
of millions of records.
Second, they want our IP. The PRC has infiltrated American
companies to steal what some estimate is well over a trillion
dollars of U.S. IP. That even includes compromising cloud
providers that handle data for hundreds of companies.
Third, they want access to our Government systems. In the
last 2 years, PRC actors compromised tens of thousands of
emails from the State Department, Treasury Department, CFIUS,
and even Presidential candidates.
Fourth and most concerning, as has been discussed already,
they want to prepare the operational environment for wartime in
the cyber domain.
That is no exaggeration. As we know, senior U.S. officials
and corporate leaders, including Microsoft CEO Brad Smith, have
indicated that the PRC is prepositioning for destructive cyber
attacks on American power, gas, water, telecom, and
transportation infrastructure that would affect the lives of
millions of Americans.
So what do we in the cyber domain? In general, we need to
shrink our attack surface and go after their attack surface.
First, Congress should prohibit technology companies that sell
to the USG from operating in China.
For example, the United States relies on Microsoft
software, but to get market access in China, Microsoft provided
source code for that software to Beijing.
The USG relies on Amazon and Microsoft cloud, but both
Microsoft and Amazon turned over the operation of their cloud
services in China to a Chinese company. All this creates
vectors of vulnerability.
Second, Congress should codify the information and
communication, technology, and services supply chain Executive
order and fund the office that administers it.
This would let us prohibit certain PRC goods that connect
to networks from being in the U.S. market.
The Biden administration's used this Trump-era tool to keep
out PRC-connected vehicles, but that's just the start. Recently
DHS-CISA has found back doors in PRC medical devices. So the
time for action is now.
Third, we need to go on the offense. If the PRC has
accesses on our infrastructure, we need them on theirs as well,
and that will take resourcing and staff.
The PRC has manpower for that. We don't have enough
manpower. This committee has thought about a variety of steps
that could help address that, including the PIVOTT Act.
We also have to protect our Federal work force from being
cut at a time of peril.
Fourth, we need common-sense regulations in the private
sector which right now has little incentive to upgrade its
cybersecurity.
Third and final question, how does the PRC threaten
homeland security through transnational crime?
Well, we all know that 200 Americans die every day from
fentanyl overdose. We know the PRC is complicit, and we know
that the PRC gives tax rebates and grants to Chinese chemical
companies for manufacturing and exporting fentanyl precursors.
We know that it allows them to advertise their goods openly
on PRC websites, and we know that its underground banks help
cartels launder fentanyl profits.
They take hard dollars from the cartels in America. They
provide them pesos in Mexico. They sell those dollars to
Chinese citizens who want their cash out of China, and they
take renminbi in compensation within China.
All that happens without any money transferring across a
border. Well, the PRC has not taken real steps to address it.
They tried in 2019, and again more significantly in 2023, but
it wasn't enough.
They have the power to stop the precursor flow. They have
the power to stop the money laundering which occurs, by the
way, on apps that they control and that they monitor for
dissident activity. If they can find dissidents, they can find
money launderers.
But they won't do it because they prefer to keep this issue
alive so they have leverage with Washington.
So what do we do?
First, we need to strengthen U.S. sanctions authority
against entities involved in the fentanyl trade, including PRC
financial institutions.
Second, Congress can link progress on fentanyl to other PRC
priorities in consultation with the administration.
Third, Congress can pass the Corporate Transparency Act so
we can track the beneficial owner of PRC shell companies and
crack down on money laundering.
Finally, we should pass the Halt Fentanyl Act, to place
fentanyl-related substances as a class into Schedule 1 of the
Controlled Substances Act.
I'll end with this: The PRC poses many challenges to our
security, but the issues that I focused on in my testimony
today are the ones that affect the lives of tens of millions of
Americans on a daily basis.
The China challenge is often abstract. I think it's
important to link it to the lives of everyday Americans. With
that, I thank you for your time and look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Doshi follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Guest. Thank you. Members will now be recognized by
order of seniority for their 5 minutes of questioning. An
additional round of questioning may be called after all Members
have been recognized.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Singleton, I want to begin with you. In your written
testimony that you submitted, on page 3 of that testimony, you
have there a graph, a chart, that is titled ``Global Leadership
of Select Strategic Technologies.''
There are 10 technologies that you have listed there, and
in each of those, you have identified a global leader. It is
troubling to me that it appears that, of those global leaders,
that the United States is the leader in 3 of those categories,
and then China is the leader in the other 7.
So 70 percent of those technologies we see that China has
outperformed the United States in those areas and just wanted
to see if you could talk about that very briefly.
Mr. Singleton. Sure, no, thank you for the question. I
mean, it's no mistake that China leads in those sectors. For
more than a decade--and we are in now 2025, and I think we all
remember the China ``Made in 2025'' plan--they decided to put
their money where their mouth is.
Through intense industrial policy, the theft of our own
intellectual property and through aggressive nonmarket
practices, they were able to invest and scale in some of the
largest technology companies in the world.
Whether it's DJI drones or Hesai LiDAR here in the United
States or CATL batteries, these are Chinese champions that
report directly to the Chinese Communist Party.
I think ultimately what we have to start thinking about are
some cyber quarantines for some of these high-risk technologies
here in the United States, really treating these systems, these
devices, and these companies as inherently risky.
We probably need to really restrict, I think, their use in
critical infrastructure in particular, and that's an area where
I think Congress can make a tremendous impact.
Mr. Guest. Let me ask you--and then I'll ask other
members--you talk about restricting Chinese access to
information. Congress had passed a TikTok ban several months
back.
We see that currently there has been a stay on that as
there are on-going negotiations between the American and the
Chinese Government over the ownership of TikTok, particularly
by ByteDance, the Chinese company.
First, Mr. Singleton, do you have any thoughts on does the
Chinese ownership of TikTok, does that pose a threat to
homeland security, and is that relevant for the hearing that we
are having here today?
Mr. Singleton. Absolutely. I mean, Chinese Communist Party
Chairman Xi Jinping referred to data as the 21st Century oil,
and I can't think of any more pernicious threat than the one
posed by TikTok.
Mr. Guest. Dr. Doshi, what are your thoughts?
Mr. Doshi. Mr. Chairman, I would agree, and I would go
further and say that one of the challenges that TikTok poses is
180 million Americans can use it to get information. I don't
want the control of the algorithm that displays that
information to be controlled by Beijing. So I think this is a
100 percent real security threat.
Mr. Guest. Mr. Evanina, do you have an opinion on that?
Mr. Evanina. I would concur with my colleagues and also say
that from an intelligence perspective, I think TikTok is one of
the greatest intelligence operations ever in the history of the
world.
Its target is directly at America with 180 million people
having a device, and their ability to control the algorithms,
drive their intelligence to our diaspora is harmful at the
minimal and potentially devastating in the long run.
Mr. Guest. Then Dr. Pillsbury.
Mr. Pillsbury. Well, I agree, but I think I would get back
to my main message of the need to rank order of priorities of
what we're going to do about China.
Breaking off the connection between the CCP and TikTok is
important, but there's an awful lot of things more important
than that that even have some sense of urgency.
So it seems to me there is a political warfare or
information warfare space that needs more attention. This--
TikTok is part of it. There are other spaces, however, that
come under Homeland Security. I'm particularly worried about
unregistered foreign agents of China.
The Department of Justice, in December, put out a revision
of the Foreign Agents Registration Act that will make it much
more difficult for people to take money from China and then
lobby. It really tightened up the number of loopholes in the
Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Mr. Guest. Dr. Pillsbury, let me interrupt you real quick
just because my time is running short. Two quick questions. No.
1, you mentioned that--about assistance that the United States
is providing China.
Is there any reason that the United States should be
providing China any financial support?
Mr. Pillsbury. I'm talking about both private sector up to
$2- or $3 trillion, according to Roger Robinson, of American
investment in China, and then Government agencies that continue
to carry out policy that was first set back in the 1970's,
that, for example, the FAA in Shanghai helps Chinese airliner
manufacturing to be more competitive.
The FAA's defense is, ``Well, we're just making sure the
airliners are safe.'' But, when you have something like 30 or
40 of these programs, the overall impact seems to me is worth
paying attention to, that our Government is still officially
helping China in many, many sectors.
You can get an idea of this by going to the U.S. Embassy in
Beijing website where they list 50 Federal agencies that are
present in the Embassy in Beijing, and then they hint about
these are all helping China in various ways. That's what I'm
concerned about.
Mr. Guest. Thank you so much. At this time, my time has
expired, and I recognize the Ranking Member for 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Based on the
testimony I've heard from all the witnesses this morning,
there's no disagreement that China represents a clear and
present danger to the national security of the United States.
[Nonverbal response.]
Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
Part of that risk associated with that danger is in the
cyber field, and I'm--in my testimony, I talked about the fact
that a lot of the agencies that are tasked with the
responsibility of protecting the United States from China and
other rogue nations, we're cutting people.
I want you to talk about whether or not we need to be
improving the personnel or technology to protect ourselves. Dr.
Doshi, we can start with you, and we can go down the line.
Mr. Doshi. Well, thank you, Ranking Member Thompson, for
the question. Excuse me. I'll say the following.
I am concerned that on, when it comes to staffing and
manpower, the PRC is investing a lot more in offensive cyber
activity and defensive cyber activity than we are. So I do
worry--you noted a number of cuts, Congressman, in your
testimony, in our opening statement, about cuts to DHS, CISA,
cuts to Cybersecurity Review Board, cuts to the teams working
on Salt Typhoon, 50 percent cuts in some of the staff--I worry
that those cuts come at a time when the Chinese are investing
more. That heightens our vulnerability.
So, if we have to--I would recommend stewarding those
resources better for the sake of our national security.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
Dr. Pillsbury, you talked about the personnel in the
embassies that China is investing in. Do you see the personnel
issue a challenge for us?
Mr. Pillsbury. Yes, I do, and one thing that really
concerns me--I'm sorry if I advertise my age--but during the
Cold War, beginning in 1947, the Congress and the President
created new institutions to deal with the Soviet threat.
They created the NSC. They created the CIA. They created
the U.S. Air Force. They created the Office of the Secretary of
Defense. All of this was driven by the perception of a Soviet
threat.
When you look to China today, despite all the talk, there's
no new institution or organization at all that's been created
to deal with the China threat.
Last night, there was a little mention of it by President
Trump when he mentioned shipbuilding, and he wants to create
kind-of a bureau of shipbuilding to catch up with the Chinese,
who, by the way, one figure says they build 300 ships for every
1 that we build.
So, again, it's a Homeland Security kind of question. Does
the Secretary of Homeland Security need a China unit reporting
directly to her, and then what would it look like? How many
people? This is the kind of thing I'm most worried about.
We're just doing nothing in terms of creating new
institutions to deal with China.
Mr. Thompson. Sure. Mr. Evanina, your background in
intelligence, what does that say to you about personnel and
other things?
Mr. Evanina. Yes, I would concur with my colleague's
statements with respect to resources in the Government, but I
would also proffer that we need just as many resources, if not
more, in the private sector and academia to defend against what
China's doing here.
When we have, you know, 20 of the top 30 companies in our
country breached in the last year by the Communist Party of
China, we have to allow and facilitate for those corporations,
from Wall Street, to energy, to telecoms, to be able to best
protect them against intelligence apparatuses of the Communist
Party of China.
We can no longer say, ``You have to get better and more
efficient in the private sector.'' It's unrealistic to ask a
company in the United States to compete and defend against a
bona fide intelligence operation around the world.
Mr. Thompson. Mr. Singleton.
Mr. Singleton. I would agree. I mean, the old adage,
``Personnel is policy'' is true. I think there are just
tremendous opportunity space for Congress to codify programs to
build out that tech talent work force that we need for
tomorrow.
But I also agree that enhanced private- and public-sector
cooperation is essential here. The private sector is a
tremendous force multiplier, particularly in the case of threat
intelligence sharing.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Guest. Thank you.
At this time, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from the
great State of Texas, former Chairman of this committee and
current Vice Chair, Michael McCaul.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me first begin,
Mr. Ranking Member, in saying my condolences for the passing of
Sylvester Turner. I knew him well when he was mayor of Houston,
and he just got elected to Congress. He and his family are in
my thoughts and prayers.
Dr. Pillsbury, good to see you again. If y'all haven't read
his book, ``The Hundred-Year Marathon,'' I highly recommend it.
It is the authority, I think, on China, Communist China.
You know, as you know, I prosecuted in 1997, the Johnny
Chung case, which led us to China Aerospace and the Chinese
intelligence apparatus putting money in his Hong Kong bank
account to influence a Presidential election, that being
President Clinton.
What they wanted was to get into the WTO and to get dual-
use technologies, primarily aerospace and satellite
technologies. Guess what? They got it, and they continue to get
it today. They steal it, but we don't have to sell it to them.
Chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee, I put export
controls on various things, including Nvidia chips in 2024. The
problem was, in 2022, Nvidia had already sold these chips to
China.
So that, along with open AI, all of a sudden DeepSeek pops
up, and we realize that China now has AI technology.
In this great power competition, once again, they steal it,
but then we sell it to them. I believe that that has to stop. I
introduced--we saw this with the hypersonic, by the way, built
on the backbone of American technology and many other apparatus
of the PLA.
I introduced the ENFORCE Act to basically prohibit, through
export controls, the sale of military-grade AI technology. I
see no reason in the world how we could justify any company in
the United States selling to China military-grade AI
technology.
So, Dr. Pillsbury, in the time I have, can you respond to
this? I'd like to give the bulk of time to you, but to the
other 3, your opinion as to whether this is a good idea in
terms of what we can legislate in the Congress, to prevent the
sale of this kind of technology.
Mr. Pillsbury. I've been focusing on what the Homeland
Security Committee could do itself, very narrow picture, but
there's a lot of things.
I always appreciate mentioning my book and also you
alluding to the famous Parlor Maid case.
Now, this, when we talk about intelligence collection on
China, one of the biggest hazards is the use of deception,
double agents, against our own intelligence community.
This committee has got a wonderful website. You're putting
up each of the cases like this on your website. So I just want
to commend you. I don't know of other committees that are, in
real time, putting up examples like this. So----
Mr. McCaul. When you say ``Parlor Maid,'' that was by FBI
agent, J.J. Smith, sleeping with a Chinese spy that he
cultivated as an asset for 10 years who was reporting back to
Beijing.
Mr. Pillsbury. Intelligence collection is always vulnerable
to deception, and in the case of China, I did a study of a lot
of textbooks and books on grand strategy, how they see the
world, how they see their own history. The word ``deception''
kept coming up over and over again.
So our problem with foreign intelligence collection,
somebody can recruit a really wonderful source or place a
wonderful device and get all kinds of intelligence, get
promoted, get a bonus.
Then, oh, all of a sudden it turns out it's a compromised
source.
In the case of Parlor Maid, what I call for in the book is
the FBI should have put out a notice that the last, let's say,
25 reports by Parlor Maid probably were under the control of
Chinese intelligence and were false. Xi was trying to mislead
us, probably under orders from the president of China, who she
claimed to be friends with.
So I'm always glad to hear you raise the Parlor Maid case.
It's still with us, I think, in many ways.
Mr. McCaul. It's taught at Quantico with the FBI, you know.
Do you have any thoughts on the ENFORCE Act? I know it's a
different committee, and I apologize for that, but this is the
Congress as a whole. Would that be a smart thing for Congress
to do?
Mr. Pillsbury. Yes, I think so. But, before you came in--I
hope you'll forgive me--I advocated that this committee visit
China with a well-organized agenda of questions.
If the Chinese accept and give you the right people to see,
you could go into the fentanyl issue. You could go into things
that are in your jurisdiction, and hopefully the House Foreign
Affairs Chairman would not block Homeland Security visiting
China.
Mr. McCaul. I don't think so, but I've been sanctioned.
That may be a problem for me personally.
Is it a good idea to block the sale of AI military-grade
technology? Maybe just get a quick yes or no.
Mr. Pillsbury. Yes.
Mr. Doshi. Yes.
Mr. McCaul. Everyone agrees. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Guest. All right.
The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from the great State
of California, Mr. Correa.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the witnesses here today. I really enjoyed
your discussion and you brought up some very good points.
Mr. Pillsbury, Dr. Pillsbury, I love what you said about
coming up with a measure of our success or what we want to do
when it comes to China because I think what my colleagues have
said today, you know, banning sales to China, other actions, we
do this, yet they seem to figure out how to get around these
obstacles we put up all the time.
I would almost say, in football terms, they're flooding the
zone, and we're chasing our own tail most of the time--not
figuring it out. But actually the fact that we are chasing them
is a major statement in and of itself.
So I'd love to have this Homeland Security come up with a,
you know, lack of a better term, a subcommittee just to address
the China issue and not just a hearing here and there.
I can't help to think that a lot of these challenges we
have are self-inflicted.
Mr. Evanina, you're a former FBI agent. I would call you a
patriot for all you've done. You probably could be making then,
for
9/11, you could've been making more money in the private sector
than you were in the FBI.
My concern is the recent firings of FBI and CIA agents. OK?
A lot of you said that the issue here is personnel. They have
more people dedicated to the mission than we do. Yet we just
fired a bunch of people, which it sounds like they're going
after them right now.
China and Russia are trying to recruit them to get them to
turn over information. Not only is the issue with those
personnel that we fired, but what about the Evaninas that are
left in the agency? What effect does that have on their morale?
OK. You go into work not on an hourly basis. You go into
work for the mission. If you think you're going to be fired,
you're going to be a person who's going to be on the street
tomorrow, Mr. Evanina, how would that affect your morale and
your motivation to be the best?
Mr. Evanina. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. I'm
a big proponent of understanding and preventing the insider
threat from being problematic, and whether it's in the
Government or corporate world. From an intelligence
perspective, the Communist Party of China, the Russian
intelligence services, that's their job is to come over here
and go around the world and recruit disenfranchised employees,
whether from the Government or corporate world, and identify
them as being vulnerable and recruit them to facilitate either
intelligence collection, selling secrets, or selling--providing
intellectual property and trade secrets on the private-sector
side.
So, for me, this is a big issue because we have to be very
conscious and effective as we're going to jettison Federal
employees who have access to critical information, whether it
be analytics or secrets, and provide them an off-ramp to
identify what those signs might look like if you are solicited
or approached by a foreign intelligence service and/or their
proxy.
So I'm concerned about the insider threat moving forward,
both in the Government and the corporate sector.
Mr. Correa. I would argue that, even people that you fire,
even if they're new to the job, these are tomorrow's experts on
the subject matter. So they've gone through background checks,
academic performances, some of their best--the best we have in
the United States, you put them in and then you fire them?
How does that bode for us 5, 10 years down the road when
we're trying to still come up with the understanding, as Mr.
Pillsbury said, of the mission that we're supposed to
accomplish?
Mr. Evanina. Well, as we've seen in history, the Communist
Party of China and Russia will continue to try and place
individuals into our apparatuses, the intelligence community
and with the Government. By doing that, they need the
information, intelligence of how do we operate from our
application system, our background investigations or polygraph;
what does it look like in our training centers; what's the best
and most effective way to get people placed in these
organizations?
So all of those employees, whether they're probationary or
whether they're new recruits or they're seasoned veterans, all
have an impact on intelligence gathering of our adversaries.
Mr. Correa. So, Mr. Chairman, I'm out of time, but----
Mr. McCaul [presiding]. Fifteen seconds.
Mr. Correa [continuing]. The gentleman here came up with a
great idea, which is to come up with a more focused approach on
this issue moving forward as opposed to a hearing on this on a
random basis, so to speak.
Mr. McCaul. Right. Good idea.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Time is up. I yield.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Pfluger.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I hope that, within this committee, we can agree that, if
there's ways to more efficiently do business, that we can do
that and look forward to having that conversation about the
folks who are not going to be a part of these agencies anymore.
But, getting to the heart of this matter, we do have good
people working inside the agencies, and this has been an
important issue. Without relitigating the last 4 years, let's
start fresh here.
I'll start with Mr. Singleton, talking about the Confucius
Institutes. I've had a lot of legislation on this, done a lot
of work on Confucius Institutes. Very worried still that the
Chinese Communist Party uses Confucius Institutes and other
entities to hijack our intellectual property, to steal
technologies, to do a variety of things that are detrimental to
us.
So what I'd like to ask you is, given the strategy of the
military civil fusion, what steps do you think the United
States should be taking to prevent them from exploiting
academic universities and using the CI kind of strategies?
Mr. Singleton. Sure enough. Thank you, sir, and thank you
for your leadership on this issue, as well as the RSC that I
know is taking a close--a close look at this.
You know, Confucius Institutes used to number over about
120 across the United States. There are less than about 14
today, but they didn't actually go anywhere. They just
rebranded and renamed themselves, and now they go by other
names that are even harder to track.
What's worse is we see the proliferation of these Chinese-
controlled outreach programs at the K through 12 level across
the United States. Again, absolutely no coordination, control,
or mandating requirement for any of these things.
Beyond the concerns about free speech encroachment, beyond
some of the ideological reservations we should have about
what's being taught in these classrooms and to our students,
there are real research risks. Primarily, it's because when you
open some of these or establish some of these research
partnerships in the academic exchanges, they all come together.
So, as we looked at the foundation for defensive
democracies at all of the Confucius Institute contracts, they
mandate research partnerships in cutting-edge emerging fields
typically between Chinese universities supporting China's
military and our university system.
Beyond that, we have to be pretty concerned, I think, about
free speech on campus. There's ample evidence from the FBI and
others showing that Confucius Institutes are used to suppress
free speech and to organize protests against speakers,
including the Dalai Lama, who come to U.S. universities to
speak about human rights in China.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you very much.
Mr. Evanina, I'll go to you on a similar topic, but on
hybrid threats and the hybrid approach that the CCP takes to--
where they're blending, you know, lawfare and legal and illicit
activities together.
So what are the concrete steps from your perspective that
we can take to counter those?
Mr. Evanina. Thanks for the question, Congressman. I think
we have to first educate and advise and make everyone aware
what that looks like. Whether or not you're in a university or
research institute or if you're a corporate world, you don't--
they typically don't know what that hybrid set looks like--
whether it's a joint venture or it's an opportunity to go in in
a hybrid, inflect some cash into a start-up or a company in the
Silicon Valley or Austin, Texas, there comes a talent to that.
I think we have to be more effective and efficient as a
Government entity, both in the Executive branch and Congress,
in educating and informing how does that look like; how does it
manifest with you and your dollars to be able to educate first
and then mitigate second?
Like the Confucius Institutes, universities out there are
just now starting to learn a lot of these partnerships with
institutes in China are problematic, and we're starting to see
onesie-twosies breaking those relationships.
Mr. Pfluger. So you mean they're taking advantage of our
country, the Chinese Communist Party?
Mr. Pillsbury. Let me count the ways----
Mr. Evanina. Yes. Absolutely.
Mr. Pfluger. We should be alert to the fact that they're--
--
Mr. Evanina. I do think we have to, but I think the onus is
on the Government to advise and inform universities and
research institutions what that looks like and be more
effective.
Mr. Pfluger. Dr. Pillsbury, last 30 seconds to you. What
keeps you up at night about the Chinese Communist Party taking
advantage of our country?
Mr. Pillsbury. Just to stick on this topic, the information
collection from our universities is really quite dramatic. I
first learned about this from FBI reports almost 15 years ago.
They go into MIT, or you name the high-tech university, to
the individual professors or department chairmen and sign a
right of first refusal: ``I give you $3 million; you tell me
when you find me''--the Chinese Communist Party--``you tell me
when you find something useful in your laboratory, and you show
me first.''
Mr. Pfluger. Wow.
Mr. Pillsbury. These agreements were being signed by many
universities. They did not know each--what it meant, and they
didn't even consult with each other----
Mr. Pfluger. Should Federal funding be restricted from
universities that are signing agreements?
Mr. Pillsbury. Absolutely.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields.
The Chair recognizes the Representative from New Jersey,
Ms. Pou.
Ms. Pou. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
Ranking Member Thompson for holding this important hearing.
Thank you to each and every one of our witnesses for your
testimony and providing us with a broad array of national
security threats that we certainly understand we're facing from
CCP. I thank you for your candid testimony and information.
In my district in northern New Jersey, I'm proud to
represent a large and vibrant community of Ukrainian Americans,
one of the biggest in our country. Just last week, I met with
members of this community. The pain in the voices and faces of
our community members were palatable. They stressed that, in
addition to being the right thing to do, U.S. support of
Ukraine benefits our national security with Ukraine serving as
a barrier from Russia's further advancement into Europe.
So I am deeply disturbed this week when I heard and saw
that President Trump ended or wants to end critical military
support to our allies in Ukraine. From weapons to satellite
data, Ukraines rely on our support to continue their fight, and
we can't turn our backs on them now.
So I'd like to begin, Mr. Doshi, if you would, please, when
the United States retrieved--retreats from our partnership, how
does that affect our ability to maintain relationships with
other countries and a unified approach to countering China? How
do we do that?
Mr. Doshi. Well, thank you very much, Congresswoman. Let me
start by saying that China is watching everything that we're
doing on Ukraine very closely.
Ms. Pou. Indeed.
Mr. Doshi. They would be very happy if, in a fit of
political dysfunction or capriciousness, we decided to cut aid
to Ukraine because they think that means we won't aid Taiwan
should that question be called. So our activity on this issue
has implications for how China looks at the Taiwan challenge.
The second part of this I'd like to stress, Congresswoman,
is also that the China challenge requires working with others.
China is 35 percent of global manufacturing. We're less than 15
percent. They are 60 percent of global electric vehicle
production, 75 percent of electric battery production, 50
percent of all robot installation, you know, in the world. So,
for us to be able to achieve scale to compete with them, we
have to do it together with others.
I do worry that some of our activity on Ukraine or some of
our activities with Canada makes it harder for us to rally
allies and partners to rise to the China challenge.
Ms. Pou. Dr. Doshi, though, if you would also just talk
about, if--you know, if you no longer view the United States as
a reliable ally, how does that create opening for China to
exert its influence in Ukraine and elsewhere, anywhere else?
Mr. Doshi. Well, thank you for that question,
Congresswoman.
I think that China has always been looking to split the
United States and Europe. They understand and everybody in this
committee and everybody testifying today also knows that China
wants to displace the United States as the world's leading
power, but they can't do that without breaking the United
States of its allies and partners.
The top of the list is Europe, Japan, and Korea. So the
more we have a wedge with our European friends--and we may have
disagreements, but the stronger that wedge is, the more space
there is for China, the easier it is for them to access
European technology.
Take export controls. You know, we need the Dutch, the
Germans and others to help us keep critical technology out of
China. That is going to get harder and harder if the Europeans
go their own way.
Ms. Pou. Totally agree. Thank you so very much.
You know, again, Chinese President Xi and Russian President
Putin reaffirmed it last week, that their partnership has,
quote, ``no limits.''
So, Dr. Doshi, and to the rest of our members, if we have
the ability to respond, how might that partnership play out in
terms of China's involvement in the Russian-Ukrainian war, and
how does that harm America's national security?
Mr. Doshi. Congresswoman, this is a very important issue.
In all the talk of a deal on Ukraine, we have to consider
China. There is no successful Russian war effort in Ukraine
without China's support for the Russian defense industrial base
and Chinese transfer of lethal material to Russia. So they are
the arsenal of autocracy right now. The fact that they're
reiterating their no-limits partnership at this moment is
partially anxiety that we might pry them apart but also a
doubling down on the Russian war machine.
Ms. Pou. So I have 15 seconds. Mr. Singleton, did you wish
to share your thoughts?
Mr. Singleton. Sure. I would agree with Russia--it's time
to impose costs on the Chinese Communist Party for aiding the
Ukrainian war effort. They've gotten away with far too much for
the last 4 years, and I think it's time to turn the tide.
Ms. Pou. Thank you. Thank you very much for that.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McCaul. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chairman recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr.
Brecheen.
Mr. Brecheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Singleton, you had something that you highlighted--I
thought it was extremely succinct in your introduction--that
the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping talking about
that the, quote, ``main battlefield'' is this innovation of
technology.
Then, Mr. Doshi, you talked about just--you highlighted yet
again that, as the United States is at 15 percent of global
manufacturing, that China is at 35 percent; you said another
statistic a minute ago. It was 30. So somewhere between 30 and
35 percent.
I really want to just move to--the President has
implemented this tariff, and you all are talking about, you've
got some strong specifics, Mr. Singleton, where you talked
about breaking that down, doing more targeted things,
sanctions, banning. I want to give you some time to build upon
what the President is doing.
We all look at things that--you know, whether it's a tie or
whether it's a coffee mug, and we're all shocked, made in
China. The President, knowing that economic strength is our
national security is trying to do a lot of things right now on
the international front to change this.
In addition to what Mr. Pillsbury talked about--which I
think is just genius--of Russ Vought at OMB, hopefully picking
up that banner again and saying, what are we doing to help
them, as if they have a 2 trillion gross domestic product--
which they were, I guess, 20 and 30 years ago--and now they're
clipping at 20 trillion gross domestic product, which somebody
said is now 70 percent relative to our 29 percent--29 trillion
gross domestic product, and the highest GDP relative to the
United States in the world. But we've empowered them because of
all these goods that we're consuming.
So how can we--I'll open this up to anybody. How can we
take what the President has seen clearly, tariffs and
sanctions--and there will be a cost, but because of the danger,
when he's saying this is the battlefield--he wants to play this
game. He wants to take our technology. He wants to have the
ability through Salt Typhoon, Volt Typhoon, bring our electric
grid down, bring our water systems down, military installation,
ownership of farmland, how can--how can we build public
sentiment to bolster our President for the American populace to
say, ``We may have to pay a price because this is a real, real
threat''? Whoever wants to take that.
Mr. Singleton. I'll start, but welcome others as well. I
mean, I think tariffs are really important tools of
geopolitical leverage if used correctly.
In the case of China, amid economic slowdown, tariffs,
unlike sanctions, they bite overnight. They cut deep. Right now
China's economy is facing tremendous headwinds, reliant almost
exclusively on overcapacity and its export model, which makes
it ripe for sort-of sharp targeted vulnerability in terms of
using tariffs.
I think we can use tariffs to actually change Chinese
behavior beyond its nonmarket practices. Fentanyl is a great
example. I think the President is employing tariffs in that way
as a pressure tactic to achieve changes in Chinese behavior.
I think Bill mentioned it best. We need a whole-of-country
sort-of approach of this, and part of that is building out
different pillars to the economic statecraft, sanctions,
outbound investment screening, sectoral export control bans to
prevent the flow of these technologies into China's military
and its defense sector. All of the sort-of pillars of American
economic power working together toward a desired end-state,
which I hope we would all believe is a change in Chinese
behavior.
Mr. Brecheen. Can we do something to build upon more
targeted tariff percentages? I mean, are there ways to be
targeted in the way we're doing reprisal tariffs that could--I
mean, this is a gross domestic product that has gained at a
rapid pace in the last 20 years--ago. No one saw China coming
like this 20 years ago. I see a lot of head-nodding on the
panel.
Mr. Doshi. Congressman, 2 quick thoughts. First, the
administration is, frankly, considering what are called
component tariffs that would make it harder for China to kind-
of hide, you know, behind rules of origin. It would allow us to
go after the fact that Chinese chips might be in something
bigger that we buy from another country. It allows us to carve
them out of supply chains.
The second point, Congressman, is actually a critical one.
The Trump administration in the first term had something--an
Executive Order, ICTS Executive Order, it's a regulatory
barrier. It allows us to keep goods out with a regulatory ban
on them. That tool should be expanded. That Executive Order
could be codified by Congress.
It was something the Biden administration used, and we
could keep using it.
Mr. Evanina. Congressman, if I may, I just want to amplify
both of those comments by saying a little bit different
perspective about amplifying the message and the why matters.
I think, when we talk about tariffs and economic drivers, I
think we have to message the American people why this all
matters. Because, in our generation, we look at it culturally,
the Russians, the Cold War, they were bad. We beat them in 1980
in the Olympics, right? We had the Ayatollah in 1979; the
Iranians culturally were bad.
We have not had that with the Chinese Communist Party yet.
So, culturally, across our country--and I'll proffer to you, in
Oklahoma, our constituents don't see China in the same light as
we saw Iran and Russia. I think we have to do a better job,
more effective at driving the issues as why this stuff matters.
Mr. Brecheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes Ms. McIver.
Mrs. McIver. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and to my
Ranking Member, and thank you to our witnesses for joining us
today.
Under the pretense of promoting efficiency, Elon Musk's
DOGE team has acquired unmatched control over critical
Government databases and technology systems. These systems
house sensitive information, including private data on Federal
employees, Government contracts, regulatory investigations, and
even the personal information of everyday citizens.
Equally concerning are Musk's close ties with China and his
boundless access to and influence over U.S. Government agencies
and systems. These dynamics raise serious questions about
national security, data privacy, and the integrity of our
Federal operations.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today as we
work to ensure transparency, accountability, and the protection
of American interests. With that, I have one question for each
witness.
The intelligence community's 2024 Worldwide Threat
Assessment highlights China as the most active cyber threat.
How might the Trump administration's reduction in CISA
personnel affect the Nation's ability to defend against these
threats? Mr. Doshi--Dr. Doshi, you can start.
Mr. Doshi. Sure. Thank you, Congresswoman. It's an
important question.
What I'll say is that--and as I mentioned, China invests
heavily in personnel for offense and defense. That gives them
significant advantage. They've got 1.4 billion people; we have
350 million. Labor does matter in this business.
What I'd like to see is us increase our Federal work force
when it comes to cyber, both offense and defense. Right now I
do worry that the cuts are coming at the wrong time. Right now
we're learning about Salt Typhoon, Volt Typhoon, compromise of
critical infrastructure, telecom. Every single day there's
something new. We need to be scaling up, not scaling down.
That's what I worry about.
Mrs. McIver. Thank you so much for that, Dr. Doshi.
Mr. Singleton.
Mr. Singleton. I think it's important that we have the
right personnel in place. I'm not an expert on CISA or the
reductions in staff in force there. But I actually think that
we also need to be thinking about building up that tech talent
work force in the private sector as well.
I think this is where Congress has a really important role
to play, both to incentivize private companies to hire and
invest and train their own talent work force, but to think
about how we want to maybe not rely so much on the Federal
Government to solve all these problems but look to the private
sector to do the work for us.
Mrs. McIver. Thank you. Anyone else want to chime in?
Mr. Evanina. I would amplify that in respect with--I
don't--fidelity on the cuts, per se, or what you reference. But
I do say that I put most emphasis on our ability or inability
to protect the Communist Party of China in our private sector,
in Wall Street, in telecommunications, in energy, academia. We
need to be more effective and efficient how we drive protection
measures out there, which is the main battlefield for Xi
Jinping, versus being so concerned about personnel in the
Government.
Mrs. McIver. Well, you can't do that without people.
Dr. Pillsbury.
Mr. Pillsbury. I agree with you. The homeland security
assessment you mentioned, I believe, from committee staff is
manned by 800 people. I agree with you that there's actually 3
sentences in the assessment that say China is the greatest
threat.
But the bulk of the work is not China. It's all kinds of
other threats. So looking at personnel issues, I just wonder if
the committee could write a letter to that unit and say, ``Why
do you have 800 people? How many are working on China, the main
threat you say yourselves versus other things?''
The personnel is very, very important. That's why I was
advocating we need some kind of new unit in our Government that
keeps track of the competition with China. We don't have it now
in any--in any department.
Mrs. McIver. Thank you so much for that. I agree.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. McCaul. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady from
South Carolina, Mrs. Biggs, is recognized.
Mrs. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witnesses for being here today.
The digital age has illuminated our world with
unprecedented connection fueling American prosperity and
transforming our very way of life. This very connectedness has
also cast long shadows. We're building vulnerabilities that our
adversaries, most notably the People's Republic of China, are
determined to exploit.
For too long, we have witnessed their calculated and often
aggressive drive to seize control of critical technologies,
especially within the vital arteries of our telecommunications
sector. The insidious and encroaching influence of the Chinese
state-owned telecom enterprise Huawei over global 5G
infrastructure is not merely a business concern; it is a direct
assault on our national sovereignty.
Their control over these networks creates the potential for
digital back doors, a silent invasion of our communications
networks, a potential weapon against the very fabric of our
free society.
Furthermore, Huawei controls approximately 30 percent of
the global telecommunications market and is the dominant
telecommunications provider in many countries acting as an arm
of the Chinese Communist Party. This market dominance creates a
dangerous scenario where unchecked growth equates to increased
opportunities for Chinese espionage.
Imagine a scenario where sensitive Government
communications, critical infrastructure control systems, or
even personal data are compromised through these digital back
doors.
As we have learned today, represented by events like these
outlined in our witnesses' testimonies, this threat is a stark
reality. The potential for compromise is not merely theoretical
but a documented capability, a chilling testament to the danger
posed by unchecked access to our vital communications networks.
So my question is to Mr. Singleton. Is it fair to say that
we are now in global arms race with China over control of
telecommunications infrastructure?
Mr. Singleton. Thank you for the question. I absolutely
believe we're in a global arms race with China as it relates to
emerging technologies but particularly telecommunications.
As a result of the tremendous work done by this committee,
the Biden administration, and the Trump administration, Huawei
is down, but it's certainly not out. I think even just last
week the CEO of Huawei sat front and center in a meeting with
Chairman Xi Jinping in Beijing to talk about China's role in
emerging technologies. I think that right alone is a signal of
positional power for Huawei and the important role Huawei plays
in China's industrial policies.
I think, to borrow a phrase from the Biden administration,
I think there's both promote opportunities and protect
opportunities here. We really need to be thinking about Western
coalitions of telecommunications companies that can provide
alternative telecommunications gear and systems to both
countries here but abroad, but also enhance export controls,
particularly through acts like the ENFORCE Act, to cut off
Huawei from advanced semiconductors AI equipment. I think that
dual approach is actually what's going to be needed here to
protect communication systems going forward.
Mrs. Biggs. Do you agree that the United States has a
national security interest in ensuring that the global
telecommunications core infrastructure is not controlled by a
hostile state actor like Huawei?
Mr. Singleton. I think it's probably the defining challenge
of the 21st Century. It's going to be figuring out who controls
the means of communication, whether it's TikTok, whether it's
telecommunications networks, whether it's basic standards for
emerging technologies.
That will probably be the defining challenge, and whoever
wins will control the drivers of the 21st Century industrial
revolution.
Mrs. Biggs. Just one more thing. So, with your--in your
professional opinion, what do you think the new Trump
administration--what could we do about that?
Mr. Singleton. Rush mentioned codifying OICTS. I think
that's a tremendous move. The America First investment policy
that the White House released about 2 weeks ago was a
tremendous road map and offered so much opportunity for
Congress to be thinking through codifying through law steps,
whether it's outbound investment screening, enhanced export
controls, severing China's ability to make greenfield
investments in the United States to purchase farmland.
I think it was the road map that Congress could follow, and
I think there would be tremendous bipartisan support for nearly
every single one of the measures in that policy.
Mrs. Biggs. Thank you very much, and I yield back.
Mr. McCaul. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Thanedar. I hope I got that right.
Mr. Thanedar. You did great. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Ranking Member, and thank you for our
distinguished panel here for coming and expressing your views
and opinions.
So the CCP has been seeking to exploit American openness in
order to steal economic secrets and undermine our national
security. I'm particularly concerned about the access currently
President Trump and Elon Musk have given to DOGE, unfettered
access to sensitive information systems containing information
about the inner workings of the Federal Government and millions
of Americans, a lot of privacy, data of many Americans they
have access to. I believe they are young 19-, 20-year-old who
have not been vetted or has gotten any kind of security or
screening.
So it is unclear whether or how this information that is
given to DOGE is being safeguarded, and how would we ensure
that such information doesn't fall into the hands of our
adversaries like China, which is particularly troubling given
Elon Musk's close ties with China, his many business ventures
in China?
How--what kind of firewall there is to protect the
information that's been freely flowing to the DOGE; and,
specifically, I think I want to ask Dr. Doshi, can you explain
how China's access to this sensitive information, information
about American citizens--you know, I've been talking--having
town halls in Michigan, talking to, you know, hundreds of my
constituents, and they're very concerned about their private
data, their Social Security numbers, their buying habits,
whatever information that they have falling into the wrong
hands. You know, they're already concerned about that
information being freely given to DOGE. Now we don't know where
else it's going.
So how would that impact our, you know, U.S. security from
your viewpoint?
Mr. Doshi. Well, thank you, Congressman, for the question.
I'll start by saying this. China is the most formidable
cyber actor the United States faces, bar none. It's the most
formidable. It has mounted a multi-decade campaign to steal our
personal data for counterintelligence purposes successfully,
our intellectual property, as we've discussed, again, quite
successfully--they're still doing it--and to penetrate our
critical infrastructure to cause us harm.
So, when we think about the situation we're in now, the
U.S. Government has already been compromised multiple times. I
do worry, though, that, you know, if we move fast and break
things in some of these systems, it's possible we're giving
adversaries additional vectors to compromise additional
information. I think Americans understand the China challenge
in abstract as Members of this committee know well. It's also
useful to make it concrete to them.
The concrete risk here is that cyber actors will have their
personal data and use it potentially down the road, especially
if they're members of law enforcement or members of government,
Federal Government, for blackmail purposes. That's something we
want to avoid.
Mr. Thanedar. Well, what can we do--and this is for anybody
on the panel. What can we do to use technology to safeguard
this data that we have? I know blockchain technology has been
used in the crypto markets. But that technology has wide
applications outside of the crypto industry.
Can such a technology be used to safeguard some of the
data?
Mr. Doshi. I'll start really quickly with just one or two
ideas. I think technology is partly the solution to the problem
that we have. Regulation is some of it. Personnel some of it.
Tech is part of it, too, in 3 dimensions.
First, we should use better encrypted communications at the
Federal level. We are not really up to speed on that. Second,
we should make sure that the vendors we rely on, like Microsoft
and Amazon, are not doing business in China in ways that
undermine the security or the products that the Federal
Government uses.
Then I think, third of all, we have to seriously consider
moving certain communications to Classified spaces.
Mr. Thanedar. Thank you so much. My time is almost up, so I
yield.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Mackenzie, is
recognized.
Mr. Mackenzie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
all of our panelists today, an incredibly important topic that
we're discussing, the threat posed by Chinese Communist Party
to the United States and our national security.
We've talked about a lot of important issues, the cyber
intrusions into critical infrastructure, the pernicious use of
social media, and also the work that a party--the Communist
Party of China is doing to embed themselves into America's
education system.
One thing that I would like to talk about and focus on that
I don't think we've maybe hit on enough here today is the
defense industry for America and what the Chinese Communist
Party is potentially doing to target our contractors and those
in the defense industry.
We heard a little bit earlier about the theft of
intellectual property, but what I have seen is that the
Communist Party of China is investing in certain companies that
seem to me to be strategic investments and sometimes parent
companies where then the subsidiaries or part companies of
those larger entities are actually providing defense investment
and equipment and technology for our U.S. military.
So I would like to hear from any of the panelists if they
have seen this kind of activity and what their thoughts are on
what we should be doing to address it.
Mr. Evanina. Congressman, thanks for that question. I think
that's a very deep and introspective question about the
commonplace and the tactics the Communist Party have used, not
only in the corporate sector but the defense industrial base.
I think the way you laid out that scenario is commonplace.
I think if you see one example of that, whether it be a
subsidiary--a supply chain vendor, you're going to see that a
thousand times across the--it's true to their form how they do
it, how they penetrate, how they facilitate. They get access,
whether it be architectural plans or just access to an IT
system. It's commonplace.
I think, with respect to understanding how that works, how
does it manifest, we have to be more effective and efficient
with their defense industrial base, big companies, and have
them force similar cyber hygiene practices all the way down
through their supply chain, be able to prevent that from
happening again and again.
We just saw recently some cases in the news where you had
the small vendors who are supplying critical technologies to
defense industrial base who were being owned and operated by a
Communist Party of China personnel. That's simple due diligence
we could be more effective and efficient at defeating.
Mr. Pillsbury. I'll try to get to you, Congressman
Mackenzie, a couple of things. One is a copy of President
Trump's book in 2015 when he laid out the sophistication that
he had observed with Chinese companies. They don't always give
their real names when they come shopping for things in our
country.
Second, there's a young scholar at SIIS here in town, just
finished a book. I heard the briefing on it. The Chinese often
have 5 or 6 layers of institutions, legal entities. It could be
in the Bahamas, or it could be in Malta. When they do cyber
espionage or when they buy and sell American companies, they
can hide behind these 5 or 6 layers.
So this young scholar is trying to see how many of these
layers can be detected through our own cyber operations. But
the issue in--he wasn't President then, but the issue in his
book, ``Great Again,'' was just how sophisticated the Chinese
are. He tells stories of his own efforts to have Trump company
products made in China. He doesn't say it, but I think he lost
money, and he doesn't like that kind of thing.
Mr. Singleton. I would just add that sometimes people are
the problem. It's pretty concerning that there's a lack of
post-employment restrictions on DOD and IC officials. They can
go work for Chinese companies and maintain their security
clearances after employment. They can lobby on behalf of
Chinese companies or companies that have major investments in
China. That's totally permissible and allowed today.
I would argue this is probably an opportunity for
legislation to come up with post-employment restrictions, a
real review on security clearances, and maybe you shouldn't be
able to hold a security clearance and then benefit from that
security clearance while you represent or advance a Chinese
company's interests.
Mr. Doshi. Congressman, I would just add, if I may, maybe 3
quick things. First, beneficial ownership. Knowledge is
important for law enforcement. There's--Corporate Transparency
Act could help us get at their shell companies that are
acquiring parts of our defense industrial base.
Second, on the cyber side, there's a lot more that we need
to hold our companies to do in contracting. Finally, you know,
CFIUS is a tool that we need to expand for this purpose,
particularly with venture.
Mr. Mackenzie. Great. Well, I want to thank all of the
panelists for that information and suggestions that they
offered because, again, I have seen this myself in several
instances, and I find it very concerning.
So I think that we should be doing more to address this
across the entire spectrum of America's economy, but
particularly when it comes to the defense industry.
So I just want to thank all of you again for joining us
today and for your responses.
I yield back to the Chairman.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields.
Chair recognizes the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr.
Magaziner.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you, Chairman McCaul and Ranking
Member Thompson.
Before I begin, I just want to recognize the empty chair on
the dais and offer my condolences to the family, the friends,
and the constituents of Congressman Turner. Although we were
only colleagues here on the committee for a short time, I know
that he left a legacy of a lifetime of public service and
impact in his home city of Houston. Our thoughts and prayers
are with him and his family today.
On the topic of today's hearing, the Chinese authoritarian
government continues to launch aggressive attacks against the
United States, including but not limited to offensive cyber
operations, targeting critical infrastructure, transnational
repression, industrial espionage, and more. The CCP has worked
to infiltrate our most sensitive sectors, including the energy
grid in our communications networks, creating high-risk
vulnerabilities in a time of crisis.
These cyber attacks against the United States also include
the illegal pursuit and theft of American intellectual
property. The theft of trade secrets through industrial
espionage, coercion, or joint ventures poses a serious threat
to the U.S. economy, erodes our competitiveness, and most
importantly, costs Americans jobs.
China's theft of our intellectual property has been allowed
to undercut American businesses, impacting our work force, and
undermining our national defense. The Chinese government also
continues to suppress dissent outside of its borders through a
range of coercive tactics, including surveillance, harassment,
and even violence.
The CCP's long arm of repression has real implications for
the fundamental freedoms and human rights that we uphold as a
Nation.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration continues to
strengthen China by insulting our allies, undermining NATO,
launching expensive trade wars against Mexico and Canada and
now other American allies, and surrendering the developing
world to China by shutting down USAID. Donald Trump and Elon
Musk's destructive elimination of USAID is not only creating a
series of humanitarian crises; it plays right into the hands of
the CCP, driving strategically important countries away from
the United States and into the waiting arms of China's Belt and
Road Initiative.
Similarly, Trump and Musk's shameful cuts to our national
security and cybersecurity agencies makes us less safe. They
have made reckless personnel cuts and pressured public servants
to resign at CISA, the Central Intelligence Agency, the FBI,
and the Defense Department. All of these agencies and
departments are critical for protecting Americans against CCP
aggression, preventing cyber attacks and attacks on our
infrastructure, and holding Chinese agents in the United States
accountable.
Dr. Doshi, can you comment on the importance of Americans'
soft power and the importance of maintaining relationships,
particularly in the developing world, in this global contest
that we have with the CCP and the dangers that come from
repelling those nations away from the United States and into
the waiting arms of the Belt and Road Initiative?
Mr. Doshi. Well, thank you for the question, Congressman.
I'll answer in 2 respects. First, I'll talk about, I think,
the Global South, if you will, and then maybe the rest of our
allies and partners. On the Global South portion, you know,
China has learned from the first trade war. What they're trying
to do now is do better in the second potential coming trade war
by relying more on exports of developing countries than to the
United States and the West. So they're relying more on Latin
America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world
to import their goods.
Now, that's a challenge for us because if we want to be
able to really bring leverage to bear, we don't want them to be
able to find market share elsewhere around the world. So how do
we stop that?
Well, we have to be players in the developing world. We
have to either bring aid or tie that aid sometimes to vendors
implicitly. We have to make sure that we're active. It is
possible that some of these cuts in some of these places can
undermine some of those efforts.
Mr. Magaziner. If I could, just because I don't have a lot
of time left, I want to give an example just to illustrate this
for my colleagues here and for anyone who is listening.
I have a factory in my district that makes a peanut paste
called Plumpy'Nut. It's used to save the lives of children who
are starving. It's a high-protein paste.
They received a stop work order from DOGE, from Elon Musk.
Their contracts were canceled. A month later, finally, as
children were dying around the world, their contract was
restored, but they still have not been paid yet. They are owed
millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, we are relying on the developing world for
critical minerals, for intelligence gathering, for trade, in
competition with China, and we are letting their kids starve
because some kid behind a computer screen here in Washington is
cutting off life-saving aid, shooting ourselves in the foot,
and strengthening our adversary China.
I yield back.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr.
Ogles.
Mr. Ogles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just take a moment to
offer condolences and thoughts and prayers to the Turner
family. Again, briefly our colleague, but a gentle soul and a
kind man, and he will be missed.
Mr. Pillsbury, you coedited the Heritage Foundation's
report, ``Winning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering
China.'' It notes that there is growing evidence that Beijing
is co-opting divisive ESG and DEI initiatives to undermine U.S.
competitiveness.
What do you believe are the implications of those efforts?
Mr. Pillsbury. Well, they're very scary. If they succeed,
we lose our global primacy. We lose all of the benefits of
being the world leader, and I doubt that we can get it back.
Mr. Ogles. Well, you hit on an important point. I think
sometimes we get distracted with the media cycle and perhaps
what's going on in the European Continent, which is important,
of course. But, when we look at the existential threats to the
United States and our supremacy globally, whether that's
militarily or economically speaking, would it be fair to say--
or at least it's my assessment that China would be the
adversary that we should be most concerned about. Your
thoughts?
Mr. Pillsbury. Yes, I think so. The good news I've just
learned in the past hour at this hearing is that, having lost
the election, the Democrats now seem to have a new theme, which
I had not heard before. We Democrats are tougher on China than
you Republicans. There's a defense, I'm sure, but the fact that
this is an issue to attack Republicans really shows we have
some hope for our country, that we're going to have a
bipartisan approach.
Mr. Ogles. It's now a bipartisan issue, right? I mean--but,
again, I want to focus on this issue. You know, we talked
about--you hear about the Belt and Road Initiative on
investment in foreign countries and how China is, quite
frankly, coopting governments around the world with their Belt
and Road Initiative.
Yet, some of the foreign aid that is being griped about
that is being cut is for gender fluidity in some far-flung crap
hole country that nobody cares about, and, quite frankly,
they're offended that we're there.
So as we start to prioritize where we're spending our
money, I think we think about homeland security. We think about
our lethality. We think about our dominance in the economic and
military sectors.
So--but I want to get back to China and DEI. While the
Chinese Communist Party delights in the spread of ideologies
like DEI; they weaponize it against us, throws it in our faces.
We can't forget how they opened their engagement with the last
administration by grandstanding about the Black Lives Matter
movement at a meeting with Secretary Blinken in Alaska.
Meanwhile, the CCP is literally cutting the organs out of
the Falun Gong practitioners. They have concentration camps for
the Uyghurs and other religious minorities. After they kidnap
and abuse Uyghur men, they send CCP officials to their homes to
rape their wives and make their children sit with them for
dinner and call them dad. They demonically call this the Pair
Up and Become a Family program. The CCP's wickedness is hard to
fathom.
Mr. Pillsbury, your written testimony encourages us to
expose China's corruption, censorship. You specifically mention
a Bloomberg news article about the Xi Jinping's family's
wealth. Why do you think the CCP is so sensitive about the
wealth of its leadership?
Mr. Pillsbury. What I advocate in my testimony has to do
with the ruthless nature of power politics at the top in China.
We know this from a lot of disclosures that happen after
somebody gets killed, or, in one case, when Kissinger was
making his second visit, October 1971, a large number of
generals and senior officials had been executed or put in
prison, and we did not know about it. This continually happens.
There's a book last year by a British diplomat named Roger
Garside called ``Coup''--coup d'etat. He implies that the
current Prime Minister of China could launch a coup against Xi
Jinping, and he even opens the book with how that might happen.
Now, the Prime Minister suddenly found himself out and dead of
a heart attack, but high-level politics in Beijing, we have to
keep track of it, and we have to know what is going on that
affects our interests.
This is one of the things I advocate. I got this idea,
frankly, from President Trump, who once raised the issue: Our
politics is in the newspapers every day. Can someone tell me
about what Xi Jinping is worried about?
It's very hard to do that. We need to spend more time on
it.
Mr. Ogles. Yes, sir.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to say, as we look to our
homeland, as we look to our initiatives abroad, we have to
think in terms of what's in it for us. So, whether it's the
minerals deal in Ukraine, whether it's deals and programs in
Latin America or South and Central America or Africa, we've got
to put America first. We need to support our President and put
our country first.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Swalwell.
Mr. Swalwell. Thanks, Chair. Thanks for having this
important hearing, and also thank you for acknowledging the
loss of our colleague, Mayor and Representative Turner. We're
going to miss him and his spirit.
On this topic, I actually don't disagree much with what my
colleague from Tennessee just mentioned. I want to ask the
witnesses here, as it relates to China, do you agree that,
unlike almost any intelligence service in the world, including
ours, that they task their intelligence service to steal
intellectual property to benefit Chinese businesses? Is there
anyone here that disagrees with that?
Mr. Pillsbury. Sir, I would just add one thing.
Mr. Swalwell. Yes.
Mr. Pillsbury. I think they're almost unique in the world
in tasking the MSS to do this. Most intelligence services in
the world are spying on government secrets, not trying to build
up the national champions.
So, in many ways, we can tip our hat that the Chinese
intelligence service is working for the national champions,
unlike the world's other intelligence services.
Mr. Swalwell. But I don't think you're suggesting that the
CIA should be stealing secrets to help Cisco?
Mr. Pillsbury. I think they would resign.
Mr. Swalwell. So does everyone here agree that our greatest
economic foe in the world is China?
I think there's agreement here.
Just by a show of hands, who here would support defending
Taiwan militarily if China militarily invaded Taiwan? So would
I, and so would a lot of my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle.
I raise that because my colleague from Tennessee also
referenced Ukraine and the minerals deal there. What concerns
me about the state of play in Ukraine on this very important
topic is that, if you are Taiwan right now, you should be very
worried about us possibly leaving our friends in the field in
Ukraine.
If you're Taiwan, you're probably asking yourself, could
the United States stitch together an alliance to actually
defend us?
Because, if China were to militarily invade Taiwan, sure,
it's in our interest to defend Taiwan. Maybe there's a couple
other countries in the region who may have an interest. I don't
know why Europe would want to get involved, unless it was
strong American partnership and strength and allyship that
persuaded them to do that.
So, to my Republican colleagues, I guess I just warn that
we can't be tough on China but soft on Russia, because China
won't believe us. They will actually think that we wouldn't
really honor our commitment to Taiwan and that the rest of the
world wouldn't go with us because we would have a credibility
deficit on that issue.
As it relates to Ukraine, I also just want to note that the
return on investment is probably the greatest military return
on investment the United States has ever spent. I don't want to
discount how much money we have spent. It's a lot. But most of
the money has gone to factories in Texas and Ohio that create
American jobs benefiting American companies, and the number of
soldiers lost is zero.
So you could say the return on investment is infinity
because you cannot divide zero.
So these 2 issues are directly related, and I hope we don't
separate them because I want to be tough on China and tough on
Russia, and I'm afraid you can't be tough on one and soft on
the other.
Mr. Doshi, what is the state of play right now as it
relates to Chinese, whether it's state-sponsored or individuals
that they harbor in their country as far as cyber attacks that
are not just stealing intellectual theft, but also ransomware
or phishing or denial of service attacks on U.S. companies?
Mr. Doshi. Well, thank you, Congressman.
In the last decade, China has become the world's most
capable cyber actor. I think you could argue, before that, it
was Russia; now it's definitely China. When it comes to taking
American personal data, intellectual property, or
prepositioning for cyber attack with web shells or living-off-
the-land techniques, they're the state-of-the-art, and they're
investing more resources, more staff, and more personnel to be
the best at it.
Mr. Swalwell. Really quickly, Russia, obviously, has a lot
of independent cyber actors who are just financially benefiting
themselves.
What--inside China, would you have the temerity as an
independent actor not associated with the Government to attack
the United States? I don't hear much about, like, that
environment.
Mr. Doshi. Very quickly, China has a number of independent
cyber actors, but they usually are contracted by the
government. They don't usually go rogue on their own.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr.
Evans.
Mr. Evans. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member.
Thank you, of course, to the witnesses for taking your time
to come and have this important conversation with us today.
I spent 22 years in the military and law enforcement, 12
years U.S. Army, another 10 years as a local police officer.
The district that I represent is really an intersection of a
lot of things that are critical both in that public safety
space and that national defense space, particularly--and we'll
start off the conversation with critical infrastructure like
energy. I represent the fourth-highest energy producing county
in the Nation: oil, gas, wind, solar, geothermal. We've got
nuclear fuel rods in the district.
So the first question to Mr. Evanina is, we know that the
CCP is engaged pretty heavily in cyber espionage and attacks on
critical infrastructure. Can you comment on how we're currently
postured to be able to defend against those attacks and what
the road map going forward looks like to be able to protect our
critical infrastructure and energy production?
Mr. Evanina. Congressman, thanks for the question. I concur
with your assessment of Colorado.
Back in 2017 and 2018 when I was director of the National
Counterintelligence Security Center, we identified Colorado as
not necessarily phase line zero but a critical element,
specifically the I-25 corridor, we saw--this is going to be a
perfect example, a road map for how China is attacking our
critical infrastructure from north to south in Colorado because
of those critical entities you referenced. We said, because
they're doing this here in Colorado, we are now going to map
that across our Nation because what China does very well is
mimic their successes.
Because they were successful in Colorado, we said, ``Let's
look at how they're doing this across the ecosystem whether it
be in Austin, Texas, California, Boston,'' and we saw the same
type of activities in critical infrastructure that we saw in
Colorado.
Second part is I think we have to be more effective and
efficient at making aware how this threat manifests in critical
infrastructure. As you know, 85 to 90 percent of the critical
infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector.
They don't get that top secret intelligence or critical
intelligence. We need to be more effective in declassifying,
getting known and collected intelligence from the CIA, NSA, and
FBI to those people who own the critical infrastructure so they
can create and mitigate some of the cyber activities they see
in their networks.
Mr. Evans. Thank you for that. Then, kind-of pivoting off
of that topic, still around critical infrastructure, Mr.
Singleton, we know that one of the key challenges that's facing
us is just the ability to build that critical infrastructure,
to have that manufacturing base and to have those supply chains
protected with sources that are not controlled by the Chinese
Communist Party.
So, again, for my district, being very energy-heavy, one of
the big concerns that we have is, if we don't have the energy
to actually be able to fuel and provide for American
manufacturing and American infrastructure in the United States,
well, we know that China does not have anywhere near the
environmental regulations that we have, and they're bringing on
just an incredible number of coal-fired plants using slave
labor and outright terrible methods to be able to fuel their
grid.
Can you just comment on what we need to be able to do in
the United States, particularly in the energy generation space,
to make sure that we have sufficient energy to be able to
compete with the Chinese Communist Party and their absolute
disregard for the environment and how they fuel their grid?
Mr. Singleton. Absolutely. Thank you for that question.
I mean, I don't think we can be our own worst enemy here. I
think that we've, unfortunately, taken a number of steps to
make it very difficult to even mine or certainly process rare
earth materials here in the United States. Until we work
through some of those regulations, I would say we're fighting
our--with one hand tied behind our back.
Mineral stockpiling may be a solution there, but I think
there's a lot of work to be done in Congress to get there. I
think, ultimately, we're going to have to be incentivizing and
thinking about select investments in new energy systems and
structures and companies to help scale them and working with
partners and allies.
I think we've all mentioned here that the Japanese, the
Koreans, the Australians, certainly companies here in the
United States, all want to work together to build out this
safe, secure ecosystem of energy systems and structures. We
should be incentivizing that. I think we can lead there. It's
an area where we can actually diffuse some of the costs amongst
our closest allies, or we can actually share some of the
sensitive information that goes into those types of systems.
Mr. Evans. In my remaining 30 seconds, just around
batteries, we have an incredible reliance on batteries and the
battery supply--you know, the battery supply chains.
Can you comment on how we can better protect our battery
production and storage systems here in the United States?
Mr. Singleton. China is a champion in battery energy
storage solutions. These companies, particularly CATL, are
mainlined into our electrical grid today across the United
States, and the number of partnerships between CATL and U.S.
utilities is only increasing. This is insanity, not just
because CATL is ostensibly private but responsible to reporting
to the Chinese government, but, because as we've talked about
today, they serve as vectors into our critical infrastructure
and supply chains for cyber attacks and espionage.
Mr. Evans. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr.
Goldman.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, I'm very glad we are having this hearing. Once
again, I note the complete disconnect between this hearing and
its purpose and what the Trump administration is doing.
Absolutely, we need to address China and do it on all
fronts, cyber, economic, military, diplomatic, in all ways.
But, when the CIA sends an unclassified email to the White
House listing names of employees hired over the last 2 years,
including a number of China-focused analysts, whose identities,
of course, are heavily guarded from Chinese hacks, that
compromises significantly our ability to conduct intelligence,
gather intelligence, and push back against China.
Mr. Evanina, I know you were the director of the National
Counterintelligence--NCSC--I forget what it's called--but the
notion that probationary employees are somehow disposable seems
to me at least to fly in the face of how our intelligence
community works. Because am I correct that, in those early
years, you often have extensive language training and extensive
additional training to prepare you to go out in the field and
successfully execute your job? Is that a fair assessment?
Mr. Evanina. Yes, Congressman.
Mr. Goldman. You know, I know Director Burns recently, when
he took over at the agency, really tried to beef up hires
related to China and those who speak some of the Chinese
languages. He actually increased the agency's budget from 9
percent devoted to China-related analysis and espionage to what
it is today, which is closer to 20 percent.
So, am I correct, Mr. Evanina, that, if an unclassified
document is sent to the White House that includes the actual
names of CIA employees, that significantly jeopardizes their
ability to continue to do the clandestine intelligence work
that they are charged with doing? Is that accurate?
Mr. Evanina. Congressman, I'm not familiar with the
fidelity of that issue, but if it's an unclassified report of
individuals who are under cover, who have cover on them, and
it's provided in the wrong hands at the White House, those who
don't need to know, it could potentially cause problems, yes.
Mr. Goldman. Right. Of course, we know, and I think you
said in your opening statement, that China's hacking of
Americans' personal data is wide-spread and extensive. I
believe you said there are 50 percent of Americans have had
personal data stolen by the CCP.
So what does that mean for the possibility that unvetted,
non-Government officials can get access to every single
American's personal identification information through the
Treasury Department or the Social Security Administration, and
potentially place it on unclassified servers?
Does that expose Americans' personal identification
information to China's hacking and cyber-warfare efforts?
Mr. Evanina. Obviously, in that situation, but I would
proffer, Congressman, as I referenced, almost every American
has had all their personally identifiable information already
taken by the Chinese.
I think the concern you reference is hypothetically, if
those is merged with individuals who are potentially under
cover and matching person A with that data.
Mr. Goldman. Right. I think that's incredibly important. So
the notion that we're having this hearing and talking about
beefing up our efforts to address China, to countering threats
posed by the CCP--and I want to be clear, when we say
``China,'' we mean the CCP--to our national security, and yet
what the Trump administration, what Elon Musk are doing is
undermining those efforts.
In fact, there's reporting even that some of the people who
have been fired with security clearances or probationary
employees are now being recruited by Russia and China to be
agents themselves.
We know about Elon Musk's significant conflicts of interest
in China with his own businesses, part of which influence--
maybe have influenced his opposition to the budget bill that we
agreed, in a bipartisan way to pass, in December.
So, Mr. Chairman, I would just urge you and your colleagues
on the other side of the aisle to take this focus and this
concern and bring it to the administration so that they can
join you in bolstering these efforts, rather than undermining
them.
I yield back.
Mr. McCaul. The gentleman yields. That concludes this
hearing, and I'd like to enter into the record the closing
statement by Chairman Mark Green, who is sick today. We hope he
gets better.
[The statement of Chairman Green follows:]
Statement of Chairman Mark E. Green, MD
March 5, 2025
Before I close, I want to express my sadness on hearing of
the tragic passing of Mr. Turner. His family and loved ones are
in our thoughts.
I want to thank our witnesses for sharing their insights
with the committee in today's hearing. The first step in
dealing with a threat is understanding the nature of that
threat.
The threat from the CCP is comprehensive in its scope,
extending throughout our society, our businesses, our
universities, and our cyber networks.
The CCP's goal is nothing less than replacing the United
States as the leading geopolitical and economic power in the
world. Its approach emphasizes infiltration and influence
within critical sectors of business, infrastructure, and
academia to obtain long-term advantages.
The extent to which our adversary has managed to extend its
reach and capabilities is disturbing and unacceptable.
Intellectual property theft in the past decade has stolen
American research and innovation for the benefit of the CCP's
technological ambitions.
Critical infrastructure has emerged as a major target of
the CCP's efforts to exploit American vulnerabilities right
here in the United States.
In recent years we have experienced large-scale cyber
attacks such as Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon that targeted
critical telecommunications networks.
We also continue to see the CCP and its associated
corporate entities seek to embed within physical infrastructure
such as transportation and supply chain networks, giving the
CCP a route to engage in surveillance or potential disruption
of such networks.
In times of heightened geopolitical tensions with the PRC,
such vulnerabilities could be ripe for exploitation. This isn't
simply about data theft--it is strategic positioning.
Leaders in the Federal Government, the private sector, and
higher education need to be vigilant and proactive in
countering the threat of the CCP's malign influence.
We cannot afford to be complacent in our competition with
the CCP.
Today's hearing shows us that the threat within the
homeland is much more extensive than many realize.
It touches on supply chains and critical infrastructure
networks that we rely on every day, and it threatens to erode
America's advantages in technological advancement and
innovation.
Here in the Committee on Homeland Security, we will work on
increasing our ability to understand, assess, and mitigate the
wide range of CCP activities within the homeland that undermine
our national security.
Today's hearing is only the start to our work over the next
2 years to counter the threat of the CCP.
This threat is one of the most critical strategic
challenges that the United States faces in the twenty-first
century. I appreciate our witnesses for their thoughtful and
informative engagement with us throughout today's hearing.
Mr. McCaul. I just want to give a few closing remarks, but
if the Ranking Member has----
Mr. Thompson. Yes.
Mr. McCaul. Let me recognize the Ranking Member.
Mr. Thompson. Let me thank our witnesses for their
excellent testimony, and obviously you will probably see some
of it in written form shared other places, but for all the
right reasons, we have to protect our country.
I don't think there's any real difference on the committee
as to who the real enemy is. I think there's some question
there as to how we should protect it, but I'm convinced that
we'll do that.
Mr. Chair, I want to enter into the record part of what Mr.
Goldman was saying, a story sharing that Russia and China both
are attempting to recruit disgruntled Federal employees for
their own benefit.
Mr. McCaul. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
exclusive: u.s. intel shows russia and china are attempting to recruit
disgruntled federal employees, sources say
By Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis, and Zachary Cohen, CNN
Updated 9:36 AM EST, Sat March 1, 2025
CNN.--Foreign adversaries including Russia and China have recently
directed their intelligence services to ramp up recruiting of US
Federal employees working in national security, targeting those who
have been fired or feel they could be soon, according to four people
familiar with recent US intelligence on the issue and a document
reviewed by CNN.
The intelligence indicates that foreign adversaries are eager to
exploit the Trump administration's efforts to conduct mass layoffs
across the Federal workforce--a plan laid out by the Office of
Personnel Management earlier this week.
Russia and China are focusing their efforts on recently fired
employees with security clearances and probationary employees at risk
of being terminated, who may have valuable information about US
critical infrastructure and vital government bureaucracy, two of the
sources said. At least two countries have already set up recruitment
websites and begun aggressively targeting Federal employees on
LinkedIn, two of the sources said.
A document produced by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service
said the intelligence community assessed with ``high confidence'' that
foreign adversaries were trying to recruit Federal employees and
``capitalize'' on the Trump administration's plans for mass layoffs,
according to a partly redacted copy reviewed by CNN.
It added that foreign intelligence officers were being directed to
look for potential sources on LinkedIn, TikTok, RedNote and Reddit.
At least one foreign intelligence officer directed an asset to
create a company profile on Linkedin and post a job advertisement, and
to actively pursue Federal employees who indicate they are ``open to
work,'' the NCIS document says.
The adversaries think the employees ``are at their most vulnerable
right now,'' another of the sources said. ``Out of a job, bitter about
being fired, etc.''
``It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that these cast aside
Federal workers with a wealth of institutional knowledge represent
staggeringly attractive targets to the intelligence services of our
competitors and adversaries,'' a third source familiar with the recent
US assessments told CNN.
The intelligence seems to confirm what was previously a
hypothetical fear for current and US officials: that the mass firings
could offer a rich recruitment opportunity for foreign intelligence
services that might seek to exploit financially vulnerable or resentful
former employees. The Justice Department has charged multiple former
military and intelligence officials for providing US intelligence to
China in recent years.
``China has always been committed to developing relations with the
United States on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in
each other's internal affairs,'' said Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu
Pengyu. ``We oppose groundless speculation on China without factual
basis.''
CNN has reached out to the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence as well as the embassy of Russia in Washington for
comment.
Officials have been discussing the risk
Career officials at the CIA have been quietly discussing that risk
and how to mitigate it in the recent weeks, current and former
intelligence officials previously told CNN. Director of National
Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this week suggested that those
discussions represented a ``threat'' made by disloyal government
employees--rather than a clinical warning of the potential risks posed
by President Donald Trump's aggressive cost-cutting strategy--and that
those involved should be penalized.
``I am curious about how they think this is a good tactic to keep
their job,'' Gabbard told Fox News' Jesse Watters on Tuesday. ``They're
exposing themselves essentially by making this indirect threat using
their propaganda arm through CNN that they've used over and over and
over again to reveal their hand, that their loyalty is not at all to
America. It is not to the American people or the Constitution. It is to
themselves.
``And these are exactly the kind of people that we need to root
out, get rid of so that the patriots who do work in this area, who are
committed to our core mission can actually focus on that,'' she said.
Multiple current officials across national security agencies who
spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity expressed frustration at the
administration's response to what they see as very real warnings--not
partisan swiping.
``Employees that feel they have been mistreated by an employer have
historically been much more likely to disclose sensitive information,''
said Holden Triplett, who served as director of counterintelligence at
the National Security Council in the first Trump administration and is
a former FBI attache at the US embassies in Moscow and Beijing. ``We
may be creating, albeit somewhat unintentionally, the perfect
recruitment environment.''
``This isn't reality TV''
``This isn't reality TV,'' said another former intelligence
official. ``There are consequences.''
The CIA and Defense Department are weighing significant staff cuts.
The Pentagon said in a memo last week that over 5,000 probationary
employees, who in most cases have been in their job a year or less,
could be fired in the short term. And the CIA has already fired more
than 20 officers for their work on diversity issues, many of whom are
now challenging their dismissal in court.
The CIA also aggressively seeks to recruit disaffected government
employees in adversarial countries ``all the time,'' noted a former
intelligence official--using similar tactics. The agency has released a
series of public recruitment videos aimed at persuading disgruntled
Russian government employees to spy for the United States, videos that
detailed ways to securely contact the agency.
``'Domestic political turbulence in your country? Sign up with us
to help us help your country!' '' the former official paraphrased the
US efforts, adding that those efforts deeply aggravate foreign
governments.
The CIA may have already inadvertently put some American secrets
within the grasp of foreign spies and hackers. In an effort to comply
with the executive order to downsize the Federal workforce, the CIA
earlier this month sent the White House an extraordinarily unusual
email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for 2 years
or less--a list that included CIA officers who were preparing to
operate under cover--over an unclassified email server.
Some of those officers, who have had access to classified
information about the agency's operations and tradecraft, may now be
terminated as part of the layoffs.
This story has been updated with new reporting.
CNN's Sean Lyngaas contributed reporting.
Mr. Thompson. In addition to that, I want to enter into the
record the fact that an unclassified email with names of some
employees in the Trump administration was sent to the White
House.
Mr. McCaul. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
c.i.a. sent an unclassified email with names of some employees to trump
administration
The list of partial names was provided in an effort to
comply with an executive order to trim the Federal
work force.
By David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes, New York Times
Feb. 5, 2025
The C.I.A. sent an unclassified email listing all employees hired
by the spy agency over the last 2 years to comply with an executive
order from President Trump to shrink the Federal work force, in a move
that former officials say risked the list leaking to adversaries.
The list included first names and the first initial of the last
name of the new hires, who are still on probation--and thus easy to
dismiss. It included a large crop of young analysts and operatives who
were hired specifically to focus on China, and whose identities are
usually closely guarded because Chinese hackers are constantly seeking
to identify them.
The agency normally would prefer not to put these names in an
unclassified system. Some former officials said they worried that the
list could be passed on to a team of newly hired young software experts
working with Elon Musk and his government efficiency team. If that
happened, the names of the employees might be more easily targeted by
China, Russia or other foreign intelligence services.
One former agency officer called the reporting of the names in an
unclassified email a ``counterintelligence disaster.''
Current officials confirmed that the C.I.A. had sent the names of
employees to the Office of Personnel Management, complying with an
executive order signed by Mr. Trump. But the officials downplayed
security concerns. By sending just the first names and initials of the
probationary employees, one U.S. official said, they hoped the
information would be protected.
But former officials scoffed at the explanation, saying that the
names and initials could be combined with other information--from
driver's license and car registration systems, social media accounts
and publicly available data from universities that the agency uses as
recruiting grounds--to piece together a more complete list.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the
Intelligence Committee, wrote in a social media post that the sharing
of the officers' names was ``a disastrous national security
development.''
``Exposing the identities of officials who do extremely sensitive
work would put a direct target on their backs for China,'' Mr. Warner
wrote.
The number of officers involved remains classified, but it could be
significant. In 2024, the C.I.A. had its best recruiting drive since
the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. C.I.A. officers, because of
their intense training, have a long probationary period, up to 4 years.
However, the White House required only the names of people who had
served 2 years or fewer.
Under William J. Burns, the former C.I.A. director, the agency put
a new emphasis on trying to recruit a diverse group of officers,
arguing that overseas spying operations required people with an array
of language skills and cultural knowledge. He focused particularly on
expanding the agency's coverage of China, creating a China center at
the headquarters that included analysts, operatives and others. When
Mr. Burns arrived at the agency in 2021, about 9 percent of the
agency's budget was devoted to China-related analysis and espionage;
today it is closer to 20 percent.
So any large-scale culling of more recent hires could have a
disparate impact on Mandarin speakers and technology experts, along
with the agency's minority work force. But current officials said the
C.I.A.'s new director, John Ratcliffe, was prioritizing China and did
not want to see any mass exodus of people with expertise in that area.
The Trump administration has made quick work of diversity programs,
ordering them shut down and scrubbed from websites.
The White House-ordered review of probationary hires comes as Mr.
Ratcliffe has begun an effort to push long-tenured agency officers to
retire early. Mr. Ratcliffe, officials said, hopes to clear a path to
leadership jobs for midcareer officers.
The C.I.A. is offering its employees what it is calling ``deferred
resignation,'' an option to quit but continue to be paid through
September, as part of the efforts led by Mr. Musk to shrink the size of
the Federal work force, officials said.
National-security-related agencies had originally been exempted, at
least partially, from the government-wide ``fork in the road'' offer to
leave their jobs that was extended last week. But Mr. Ratcliffe pushed
to have a version of the offer extended to his work force.
Under the C.I.A.'s program, the agency will retain some say over
the timing of when anyone leaves to ensure that critical areas have
enough officers.
Otherwise, however, the offer is structured in much the same way as
what Mr. Musk's team pushed out across the Federal Government.
In an email sent on Tuesday, agency officers were extended an offer
to leave the agency effective Sept. 30 but continue to be paid. An aide
to Mr. Ratcliffe said it was ``effectively giving them a buyout and a
runway to the private sector.''
The offer was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
The aide to Mr. Ratcliffe, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
under agency protocol, said the effort was meant to encourage some of
the large group of officers who joined after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks to retire early.
``These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the agency
with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge
and better position the C.I.A. to deliver on its mission,'' according
to a statement released by a C.I.A. spokeswoman.
The spokeswoman said the offer would ensure that the agency's work
force was responsive to the Trump administration's ``national security
priorities.''
A correction was made on Feb. 5, 2025: An earlier version of this
article misstated where the C.I.A. sent a list of employees. It went to
the Office of Personnel Management, not to the Office of Management and
Budget.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If
you spot an error, please let us know at [email protected].
David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national
security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four
decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national
security challenges.
Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and
international security matters for The Times. He has written about
security issues for more than two decades.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 6, 2025, Section
A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: C.I.A. Sends
White House Unclassified Email Listing Employee Names.
Mr. Thompson. What we heard today is that China's ambition
to shift international order and their capability to do it is
real.
While Acting Chairman Guest recognized that countering
threats from the CCP will also take economic and diplomatic
investment, the administration's actions run counter to that
statement.
Just today, in response to the Trump administration's
recent actions, the Chinese Embassy in the United States
tweeted: ``If war is what the U.S. wants--be it a tariff war, a
trade war, or any other type of war--we are ready to fight till
the end.''
In a war, our Nation needs allies and assets. This
administration is sidelining our friends, NATO, as well as
Ukraine, while appeasing Russia.
The administration is cutting the cyber work force that
protects our networks, undermining our intelligence
capabilities, and weakening our relations around the world.
The administration's approach does not make sense. The
administration is leading us into a fight with China with a
misguided foreign policy, a misguided trade policy, and a
misguided cyber policy, a misguided intelligence policy, and a
misguided economic policy.
Instead, we must maintain our tried-and-true alliances and
posture the United States to defend against threats both
foreign and domestic.
I urge our Republican colleagues to step up and hold the
Trump administration accountable.
I thank, again, the witnesses for their testimony and yield
back.
Mr. McCaul. The Ranking Member yields.
Let me, in closing, say it's been a great hearing. I think,
as Dr. Pillsbury said, this is a bipartisan issue. It's a
threat to the United States, and as Americans, we unite as
Republicans and Democrats.
I also just want to make a few comments on the threat
landscape as I see it. As both the Chairman Emeritus of this
committee and Foreign Affairs, the threat after the fall of
Afghanistan, the invasion of Ukraine, then the Ayatollah
rearing his ugly head in the Middle East, but the unholy
alliance between Putin and Chairman Xi at the Beijing Olympics,
prior to the invasion of Ukraine is, I find, deeply disturbing.
I think as Dr. Doshi mentioned, that the Chinese have
completely revitalized the Russian military. Iran has sent
drones that Russia uses to kill Ukrainians, you know, the same
drones that they use to fire into Israel.
However, I do see normalization in the Middle East. Being
the eternal optimist, I do see the conflict in Eastern Europe,
I hope, being resolved.
It's the threat to the Indo-Pacific that I find the most
serious within the context of the great power competition, but
also as someone who's traveled to Taiwan and been surrounded on
the island by war games, exercises conducted by the CCP, in a
direct shot across the bow, not only to me but to the recently
inaugurated President Lai, as someone who flew over the South
China Sea, seeing China, Chinese warships invading Philippine
waters with water cannons, hitting vessels in the Philippines,
warning us that we are invading Chinese sovereign territory.
It's getting very aggressive, which is why I passed the
AUKUS bill to the alliance of United States, Australia, and the
United Kingdom, to further not only submarine wars--warfare,
but also pillar No. 2, which is AI quantum innovation when it
comes to weapon systems, which is why I think, again, going
back to this export-control issue on chips is important.
I think an invasion of Taiwan would be catastrophic. Either
China would own or break TSMC, which I have traveled to and
have seen. You mentioned ASML's machines, very important that
they not sell those to China.
But the result there, as I was told by TSMC, would be a
complete shutdown of 90 percent of the advanced global
manufacturing, which is precisely why I introduced the CHIPS
Act, under the guidance of Mike Pompeo, then-Secretary of State
under President Trump, so there's no confusion about this
program, which was designed to pull supply chain out of Taiwan
and invest it in the United States.
TSMC just announced a $100 billion investment in the United
States, which is a good thing, and we've had $650 billion
reinvested for the purpose of manufacturing this critical asset
here in the United States.
I want to leave you with 2 other thoughts that have not
come up, and that is, I have visited with Merrick Garland,
being in the brotherhood of the DOJ, and talked to him about
the China Task Force being shut down, even though espionage has
not.
This united front, someone who worked in this area many
years ago, concerns me, as a 501(c)(3) political arm of the CCP
in the United States.
Also something was brought to my attention by Palmer Luckey
who runs Anduril, that does a lot of great innovation like the
Ghost Shark, which will be used extensively in the Pacific.
Talked about our patent system being open to the public and how
China, for them, it's a treasure trove of documents that they
can look at, on a daily basis, and steal patents from the
United States.
Finally, capital flows. You know, I introduced a bill last
Congress. I know the administration has come out with their own
guidance and Executive Order on restriction of capital flows
that then basically go into arming the PLA's war machine.
So I leave you with those thoughts in conclusion. I invite
you to provide further testimony on those points.
Finally, to the point that Dr. Pillsbury raised, and that
is the role of this committee, when you have all those
employees over there at the Department of Homeland, how many
are really working on China?
In my view, it should be the highest priority. So any
guidance you have to this committee in terms of what the
Ranking Member and the Chairman and the committee can do to
strengthen our resiliency against what I consider to be the
great power competition, the biggest threat to the United
States, looking to the next generation, and that is Communist
China.
So, with that, I know I have some closing remarks that have
to do with the written statements will be allowed and so forth,
but I want to thank the witnesses for being here today, and I
look forward to seeing your addendum, your further testimony in
writing to the issues I just raised.
With that, this committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:19 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green, MD for Michael Pillsbury
Question 1. In 2018, you testified before the House Intelligence
Committee and your opening statement referred to how the United States
has made progress in its new strategy toward the CCP, but as a Nation
we may still be underestimating the CCP problem and China's resistance
to change. Seven years and 2 administrations later, do you feel that we
are positioned better to combat CCP threats? If so, how exactly? If
not, how come?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. You have examined the United States' strategic
competition with China. We even have a bipartisan select committee in
the House dedicated to these efforts. In your view, how do you think we
should balance the need for a certain degree of pragmatic engagement
with the CCP, while maintaining a strong deterrent in military and
economic spheres?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. One of the Trump administration's main initiatives is
to hold China responsible for being a silent partner with the
distribution of poisonous fentanyl into our homeland--a critical issue
for our committee. How significant is the CCP's involvement in fentanyl
distribution and deaths in the United States?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 4. In your opinion, how can our Government be more
effective in addressing the CCP's role in fentanyl trafficking?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5. Dr. Pillsbury, you have had a front row seat to the
rise of China's economy--which owes much to American generosity from
the 1970's to the present time. The United States has helped China gain
access to world markets, notably support for China's acceptance into
the World Trade Organization in 2001. In return, they promised
transparency in its laws and regulations, intellectual property
protections, and tariff cuts on imported goods. Do you think China has
been a reliable partner in this relationship?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green, MD for William R. Evanina
Question 1. You have mentioned before in your appearances before
Congress the need for our Nation and Government to take a ``modern view
and reimagination'' of counterintelligence. Can you explain why this is
important in addressing our adversaries such as the CCP?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. What specific changes or innovations do you believe are
necessary within our current counterintelligence framework to
effectively have this modern view of counterintelligence?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. The insider threat and malign influence is a constant
vulnerability used by the CCP that has not only affected local and
State governments across our Nation, but academia and the private
sector as well. Can you speak on effective ways to identify and prevent
insider threats from the CCP?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 4. You wrote an article last year for the National Defense
Magazine titled, ``Spectrum Shortage Threatens U.S. National
Security.'' You stated that the spectrum, which is the invisible
airwaves which makes wireless communications possible, has
vulnerabilities that makes attacks possible from Chinese actors and
threatens our national security. Can you speak about the importance of
addressing this issue?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5. Last month, this committee released our updated China
Threat Snapshot which detailed more than 60 cases of espionage
conducted by the CCP on U.S. soil. These cases included but were not
limited to transmission of sensitive military information and stealing
of trade secrets. Can you speak to the methods that CCP uses for
espionage activities?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 6. It was recently reported in open-source news that the
CEO of S&L Aerospace Metals LLC, Jerry Wang, is listed as an official
for several CCP influence and intelligence groups. His company has
received tens of millions of dollars in DOD contracts for parts for
fighter jets, helicopters, and guided missile launchers. How vulnerable
do you believe our Nation's supply chain is to the CCP and its
affiliates?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 7. In March 2023 you appeared before this committee and
stated that economic security is national security. You stated that in
2020 alone, the estimated economic loss from theft of intellectual
property and trade secrets from CCP was billions of dollars. This is a
staggering amount; how can we mitigate this specific threat?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 8. During the last administration, Chinese illegal aliens
flooded across the border at unprecedented levels. Do you think it's
possible that there may be CCP operatives who have crossed the borders,
either detected or undetected, that are here in the United States for
nefarious reasons?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 9. On February 4, 2025: Leon Ding, a Chinese national, was
indicted for allegedly stealing AI secrets from Google. According to
the superseding indictment, he allegedly uploaded over 1,000 files
containing confidential company information into his personal Google
Cloud account from May 2022 through May 2023. Could you briefly walk us
through the significance of this case?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 10. On March 9, 2023: you testified before the committee
that China ``continues to utilize ``non-traditional'' collectors to
conduct a plurality of their nefarious efforts here in the United
States due to their successful ability to hide in plain sight. The non-
traditional collectors, serving as engineers, businesspersons,
academics, and students are shrouded in legitimate work and research,
and oftentimes become unwitting tools for the CCP and its intelligence
apparatus.'' Has your assessment changed in any way? How exactly?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 11a. Under the first Trump administration, you served as
the first Senate-confirmed director of the National Counterintelligence
and Security Center (NCSC). The NCSC leads and supports the U.S.
Government's counterintelligence and security activities critical to
protecting America. Can you please expand on your prior work for this
center?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 11b. The NCSC provides outreach to the private sector at
risk of foreign intelligence penetration. Can you please expand on the
level of threats and efforts to mitigate such threats?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions From Chairman Mark E. Green, MD for Craig Singleton
Question 1a. Your article titled ``Safeguarding U.S. Interests in
the Face of China's `New Productive Forces' Strategy'', highlights
China's efforts to spur economic growth by asserting dominance in
several key emerging technology sectors. Given the recent advancements
we have seen with DeepSeek, I am interested in hearing more about the
impact of China's ``new productive forces'' strategy on U.S. technology
development and security.
If China successfully implements its ``new productive forces''
strategy, what cybersecurity risks will China introduce into the global
technology ecosystem? How can the United States protect against these
risks?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 1b. Follow-up: My bill, the China Technology Transfer
Control Act, would strengthen export controls to China for any covered
technologies or IP. Given cyber space has no borders, what policy
solutions can we pursue concurrently with export controls to strengthen
our cyber defenses against China?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2a. China is sitting in critical infrastructure that
Americans depend on every day. For at least 5 years, Volt Typhoon has
been waiting and ready to shut down our infrastructure in the event of
a conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan.
The Trump administration often speaks about going on the offense.
How can we leverage the U.S. toolkit to tell China that intruding into
our critical infrastructure is unacceptable?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2b. Follow-up: How prepared is Taiwan to protect their
networks and infrastructure against a cyber attack from China?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2c. Follow up: What should cybersecurity cooperation look
like with Taiwan?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. You recently wrote an article titled, ``Laser Focus:
Countering China's Lidar Threat to U.S. Critical Infrastructure and
Military Systems.'' In the article, you explained how Lidar, which is a
remote sensing technology with both military and civilian applications,
stands at the middle of the CCP's bid for technological superiority.
Could you please briefly expand on what you mean by this assertion and
why it should matter to the American people?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 4. On December 18, 2024: Chen Jinping, a resident of New
York City, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an illegal agent for
the People's Republic of China (PRC), in connection with opening and
operating an undeclared overseas police station in lower Manhattan for
the PRC's Ministry of Public Security. According to court filings,
Jinping and co-defendant ``Harry'' Lu Jianwang also allegedly
obstructed justice by destroying evidence of their communication with
the PRC's government. Could you briefly explain the significance of
this case?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5. On December 11, 2024: Yinpiao Zhou, a PRC citizen and
lawful permanent resident of California, was arrested for allegedly
flying a drone over and taking photographs of Vandenberg Space Force
Base. He was arrested at San Francisco International Airport before
attempting to board a flight to the PRC. According to court filings, a
drone detection system identified the drone flying over the base. The
drone systems identified that the drone flew for about 1 hour, flew to
an altitude of nearly 1 mile above ground level, and came from Ocean
Park, a public space adjacent to the base. Could you briefly explain
the significance of this case?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 6. Considering the CCP's National Intelligence Law, which
can compel Chinese citizens to assist in intelligence gathering, how
are U.S. border authorities assessing the potential long-term security
risks posed by the influx of Chinese nationals, particularly in
relation to critical infrastructure and sensitive technology sectors?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 7a. Would you agree that a dedicated working group at DHS
to tackle acts of transnational repression by the CCP against American
citizens and dissidents on U.S. soil would help keep the homeland safe?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 7b. Follow-up: On November 18, 2024: Texas Governor Greg
Abbott issued an executive order (Executive Order No. GA-47) that
enabled law enforcement agencies throughout the State to investigate
and charge individuals who commit acts of transnational repression on
behalf of the PRC and the CCP. Do you think that other States should
consider taking similar actions?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 8. In your testimony you stated that we are in a global
arms race with the People's Republic of China (PRC), especially as it
pertains to telecommunications. Could you please expand on how much of
a cyber risk Huawei poses to U.S. companies and U.S. national security?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 9. Is Huawei an integral part of the PRC's military-civil
fusion strategy?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 10. Does Huawei act in a manner counter to the interests
of a free, fair, and competitive market to further the interests of the
PRC's government?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 11a. Barring any outright prohibition or ban of Huawei by
U.S. allies and partners, how can American companies effectively
compete against the PRC-state-backed company?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 11b. What American companies, if any, currently have the
capacity to effectively compete with Huawei across the full stack?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 11c. Where do these companies stack up against their
European competitors?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 11d. Do any currently existing companies outside of the
PRC have a competitive position versus a PRC-state-backed company like
Huawei?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
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