    [Joint House and Senate Hearing, 119 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                               STAND WITH TAIWAN:

                     COUNTERING THE PRC'S POLITICAL WARFARE

                          AND TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                  CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                        ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 JULY 23, 2025

                                   __________

     Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China

     [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                  Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    61-410PDF             WASHINGTON : 2025

                  CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                        LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

    Senate

                                         House

    DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chair          CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey, Co-chair
    TOM COTTON, Arkansas                 ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa
    JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 ELISE STEFANIK, New York
    TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois            DALE STRONG, Alabama
    ANDY KIM, New Jersey                 JEN KIGGANS, Virginia
    LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware       JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
                                         THOMAS SUOZZI, New York
                                         SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM, Virginia

                         EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

                               Not yet appointed

                          Scott Flipse, Staff Director

                       Piero Tozzi, Deputy Staff Director

                                      (ii)

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                                   Statements

    Opening Statement of Hon. Dan Sullivan, a U.S. Senator from
      Alaska; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.....     1
    Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from Oregon.......     3
    Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a Representative from New Jersey
      and Co-chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China......    11

                                    Panel I

    Statement of Fan Yun, Member, Legislative Yuan of Taiwan.........     4

                                    Panel II

    Statement of Michael W. Studeman, Rear Admiral, USN (Ret.),
      former Commander, Office of Naval Intelligence.................     7
    Statement of Peter Mattis, President, The Jamestown Foundation...     9
    Statement of Audrye Wong, Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow, American
      Enterprise Institute, and Assistant Professor of Political
      Science and International Relations, University of Southern
      California.....................................................    12

                                    APPENDIX
                              Prepared Statements

    Fan, Yun.........................................................    41
    Studeman, Michael W..............................................    43
    Mattis, Peter....................................................    49
    Wong, Audrye.....................................................    63

    Sullivan, Hon. Dan...............................................    67
    Smith, Hon. Chris................................................    68
    McGovern, Hon. James P...........................................    69

                           Submissions for the Record

    Submission of John Dotson, Director, Global Taiwan Institute,
      entitled
      ``Fundamental Elements of the Chinese Communist Party's
      Political Warfare Directed Against Taiwan''....................    71
    Submission of Howard Shen, independent analyst, Taiwan political
      and security affairs...........................................    87

    CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form..........................    97
    Witness Biographies..............................................    98

                                     (iii)

                               STAND WITH TAIWAN:

                         COUNTERING THE PRC'S POLITICAL

                      WARFARE AND TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION

                                  ----------

                            WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2025

                                Congressional-Executive
                                           Commission on China,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The hearing was held from 10:05 a.m. to 12:17 p.m., in Room
    222, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, Senator
    Dan Sullivan, Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on
    China, presiding.
        Also present: Co-chair Chris Smith, Senators Merkley, Kim,
    and Blunt Rochester, and Representatives Nunn and Strong.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAN SULLIVAN, A SENATOR FROM ALASKA
         AND CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

        Chair Sullivan. It's my honor to join you this morning to
    host the first hearing of the Congressional-Executive
    Commission on China in the 119th Congress. I am to serve as the
    chair of the Commission. I'm very honored for that
    responsibility, alongside my co-chair Representative Chris
    Smith, who I understand is going to run a few minutes late
    today. We're going to make sure he's here, but we want to get
    this going. I want to thank my Senate colleagues who are here.
        This Commission has a really long history of bipartisan
    work, bicameral work, on one of the most important
    relationships that we have in the United States, and that's
    with the Chinese government and the Chinese people. It's an
    honor to serve with Congressman Smith, who's been such a
    champion on so many of these issues for decades. I look forward
    to engaging with Senator Merkley as well, who's also been a
    leading voice on so many of these issues, and who has led this
    Commission with skill and passion over the past four years.
    It's a good group and I appreciate my colleagues who are here
    right now.
        Today's hearing comes at a pivotal moment. For 75 years,
    the People's Republic of China has vowed to bring Taiwan under
    its control. We have our own Taiwan Relations Act. We have the
    One China policy. However, in recent years that pressure--not
    just, by the way, with regard to the Taiwanese, but other
    people, including American citizens--has intensified and
    globalized, with Beijing not only targeting Taiwan across the
    strait, but projecting intimidation across borders and
    institutions, using political transnational repression as a
    tool of coercion against people across the globe.
        The title of this hearing rhymes with major legislation of
    mine, the Stand with Taiwan Act. That bill, which I've
    introduced in the last two Congresses and will soon be
    introducing again, has great bipartisan support. Senators
    Graham, Duckworth, and Coons are the top co-sponsors. And I
    would encourage strong bipartisan support with my colleagues
    here. What it would do, if there is a military invasion of
    Taiwan by the Communist Party and the PLA of China, is trigger
    punishing, comprehensive sanctions on the Chinese economy, and
    particularly on leaders of the Chinese Communist Party,
    punishing economic, trade, financial, energy. We all want
    deterrence in the Taiwan Strait, and I think the threat of
    these massive sanctions might be critical in terms of deterring
    a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan by the PLA.
        We also need to deal with the here and now of Chinese
    coercion abroad. And, again, this hearing is going to focus on
    the coercion of Taiwanese citizens, but I certainly will be
    asking questions in my Q&A with the witnesses, about repression
    of others, people from Hong Kong, American citizens--which is
    really unacceptable when it's by the Chinese Communist Party.
    You know, they're good at coercing their own citizens, but
    they're not going to, with this Congress, be allowed to coerce
    Americans or those who are our allies.
        These threats are multifaceted--AI-generated
    disinformation, the extraterritorial application of PRC laws,
    of course, diplomatic pressure on Taiwan's allies, the public
    intimidation of democratically elected leaders. By the way,
    that's something the Chinese Communist Party would never do.
    They'd never stand for election themselves. They fear their own
    people, because they know they probably wouldn't get elected if
    they had to stand for election. So that makes them nervous--
    that there are people who actually stand for elections, like we
    do, and, you know, go before the people.
        The PRC is also attempting to rewrite international norms,
    distorting U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2758 and pressuring
    countries to embrace Beijing's view that all necessary measures
    be taken to achieve unification regarding Taiwan. Most
    disturbingly, the PRC has labeled Taiwan's vice president, whom
    I know well and who is a good friend of mine, and other
    officials, as obstinate Taiwan independence diehards,
    threatening them with life imprisonment or worse. It has
    declared that any Taiwanese citizen, including those living
    abroad, can be punished under PRC law.
        In a closed-door meeting earlier this year, senior CCP
    official Wang Huning reportedly called for a global expansion
    of these intimidation tactics. According to credible reporting,
    Wang instructed embassies and security services--hopefully
    they're not doing it here in America, but they probably are--to
    implement ``proactive intimidation'' against so-called radical
    Taiwanese independence advocates worldwide, including in the
    United States of America. These are not abstract threats. Last
    year, Czech intelligence uncovered a planned ``kinetic
    operation'' by the PRC to intimidate then-Vice President-elect
    Hsiao on her visit there. Again, she's a friend of mine, a
    great person. The PRC has also harassed international media
    outlets for interviewing Taiwanese leaders. Individuals around
    the world who criticize Beijing's Taiwan policy have been doxed
    and placed under surveillance.
        This is transnational repression. It is a coordinated
    strategy to isolate Taiwan and dominate the global narrative
    through fear and coercion and again, not only against Taiwanese
    citizens but other citizens, including our own citizens. Every
    day, the CCP grows bolder and more aggressive in its threats
    against Taiwan. The United States and our allies in the Indo-
    Pacific need to call them on that, have open hearings like
    this, and push back against this transnational repression.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Sullivan appears in the
    Appendix.]
        I want to thank our witnesses. I want to thank my
    colleagues who are here. We're going to be waiting on
    Congressman Smith, but we're going to begin this hearing. I'd
    ask Senator Merkley, who's been a longtime champion and leader
    of this Commission, and again, I'm very honored to serve with
    him--and Senator Blunt Rochester, Senator Kim as well--if he
    would like to make an opening statement before we call our
    first witness and our first panel.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY,
                         A SENATOR FROM OREGON

        Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Congratulations on your appointment. And welcome to the members
    of the Commission. I'm very glad to see that the CECC has been
    reconstituted--it's holding its first hearing. I've served as
    chair, as co-chair, and as a returning member. And I look
    forward to working with you in the months ahead on these
    important issues of China's transgressions against basic
    dignity and human rights. And there are threats that extend
    around the globe.
        Last Congress, I introduced the bipartisan Transnational
    Repression Policy Act to address the very threat we're
    addressing in this hearing, so I really appreciate that this
    topic is gaining more attention. I will introduce an updated
    version this year. This hearing is quite timely. The U.S. must
    take concrete steps to limit the ability of authoritarian
    states to carry out repression, and hold perpetrators
    accountable, including as it relates to attacks against Taiwan
    and the Taiwanese diaspora. It's particularly important that we
    establish a clear governmentwide definition of transnational
    repression, one that recognizes it as a threat to democratic
    institutions and to fundamental rights. I look forward to
    hearing from today's witnesses on the PRC's expanding use of
    this strategy and the broader efforts to suppress dissent
    abroad, and how we best respond to it. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Sullivan. Great. Thank you, Senator Merkley. And
    before we call our first witness, I'd ask if my Senate
    colleagues want to make an opening statement at all on this.
    Okay, great. Well, thank you for being here.

                                    Panel I

        Our first panel, I am honored to welcome Ms. Fan Yun, a
    member of the legislature of Taiwan--she will be Zooming in
    with us, I believe--for the Democratic Progressive Party, who
    joins us virtually from Taiwan. MP Fan was previously an
    associate professor at the Department of Sociology, National
    Taiwan University, and served as ambassador-at-large for
    Taiwan. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University.
    We'll forgive her for that--that's a joke. She's been a
    champion of democracy for decades, participating in various
    pro-democracy movements in Taiwan, including the 1990 Wild Lily
    Student Movement and the 2014 Sunflower Movement. She also
    currently serves as an advisor for Democracy Without Borders
    and is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
    So without further ado--hopefully we have the connection here.
    Virtually, we'll have MP Fan with her testimony. You are now
    recognized.

                         STATEMENT OF FAN YUN,
                   MEMBER, LEGISLATIVE YUAN OF TAIWAN

        Ms. Fan. Okay. Chair Sullivan, Co-chair Smith, Senator
    Merkley, and CECC members, thank you for having me as a witness
    today. I would also like to thank the U.S. Congress and
    administration for your longstanding bipartisan support for
    Taiwan.
        Last fall, our national baseball team won the World
    Baseball Softball Confederation's Premier 12th championship.
    But our players were not allowed to wear jerseys bearing our
    country's name, nor could they proclaim our country's name in
    public. After hitting a decisive three-run home run, our team's
    captain pointed to the blank space on his jersey where Taiwan
    should be, celebrating the name that cannot be named. This is
    the reality we live with, constantly being silenced by the PRC.
    However, enduring such political warfare has also built up our
    capacity to resist.
        As the title of this hearing suggests, in addition to
    growing military threats and economic coercion, the PRC's
    political warfare against Taiwan has also escalated. Their
    tactics include manipulation of international laws, united
    front work activities, espionage, infiltration, and
    disinformation campaigns. In terms of lawfare, the PRC has
    twisted U.N. Resolution 2758 for political propaganda in the
    international arena. They not only aim to separate Taiwan's
    participation in various international organizations but also
    seek to legitimize the use of force to annex Taiwan.
        In addition, the PRC has intensified its united front and
    infiltration efforts within Taiwan. According to our National
    Security Bureau, the number of spying activity indictments in
    2024 was four times higher than in 2021, rising from 16 to 64.
    Targets include the military, the parliament, both the ruling
    party and the opposition, and civic groups. The PRC has even
    recruited gangsters to build an armed support network all over
    Taiwan. The PRC has also established united front organizations
    in Taiwan to invite religious groups, village chiefs, and
    college students on heavily subsidized trips to China. For
    college students, there are special programs attracting young
    Taiwanese to study, work, or start businesses in China. These
    activities aim to integrate them into China's economy and
    eventually have them come to view China's politics and culture
    in a positive light.
        After last year's elections, the two major opposition
    parties formed a majority voting bloc in Taiwan's Legislative
    Yuan. After their electoral victory, the caucus leader of the
    leading opposition party, the KMT, led 17 of its lawmakers,
    nearly one-third of the entire caucus, to visit China and to
    meet Chinese officials. Shortly thereafter, the KMT, along with
    the TPP, rushed to push through a series of unconstitutional
    bills, prevented the national security legal amendments from
    proceeding to a first reading, and froze or slashed the
    national defense budget without proper justification. Many
    Taiwanese believe these actions show how pro-China forces are
    exploiting Taiwan's democratic mechanisms to undermine both its
    sovereignty and democracy.
        In terms of disinformation, our National Security Bureau
    reported that messages with China's influence increased from
    1.3 million in 2023 to 2.2 million in 2024, expressed through
    newspapers and TV stations, as well as social media platforms
    such as TikTok. According to a think tank, GTI, some media
    outlets have received direct instructions from the CCP's Taiwan
    Affairs Office regarding news coverage and editorial
    commentary. The PRC also funds Taiwanese influencers to produce
    content in China that aligns with its political agenda.
        What's the goal of the PRC's political warfare? First, it
    seeks to distort the world's understanding of Taiwan,
    specifically by framing cross-strait conflict as a domestic
    issue, to isolate Taiwan. Second, the PRC works to erode the
    Taiwanese people's confidence in the United States. A recent
    poll found that TikTok users in Taiwan are more likely to view
    China favorably and more likely to believe that a pro-U.S.
    government [in Taiwan] might provoke war. This is a clear sign
    that the disinformation is influencing TikTok users, most of
    whom are young people.
        Third, by spreading false narratives the PRC aims to make
    the Taiwanese either lose confidence in their government or
    disengage from politics. Potentially, these actions can
    ultimately lead people to lose the motivation and willpower to
    defend our democracy. As to transnational repression, recently
    the PRC released an investigation report claiming that Taiwan's
    military conducted cyberattacks against China. They publicized
    the names of 20 Taiwanese military officers and threatened them
    with arrest warrants and judicial punishment.
        Last month, the PRC launched a first-ever large-scale
    disinformation campaign to attack DPP legislator Puma Shen, who
    was advocating tightened national security legislation. These
    transnational attacks against members of the military and the
    government, including the planned car collision targeting then-
    VP-elect Hsiao in Czechia, are tactics the PRC is using to
    intimidate the Taiwanese, to show the cost they will have to
    bear if they dare to resist China.
        How is Taiwan countering these threats? It takes
    cooperation between the government and civil society. In
    addition to raising the national defense budget to a historical
    high, President Lai adopted a whole-of-society defense
    resilience strategy aimed at strengthening the civil defense
    capacity. To counter the united front, he has proposed further
    national security reforms to enhance our resilience against
    China's united front and infiltration tactics.
        To tackle disinformation, all government agencies are asked
    to rapidly respond to misleading information. More importantly,
    many NGOs have created independent fact-checking websites, as
    well as tools that can be embedded in apps. For cognitive
    warfare aiming to affect the young generation, the Ministry of
    Education is developing teaching materials about understanding
    China. It aims to teach students how to critically assess
    Chinese propaganda.
        In a highly polarized politics, the effort of the ruling
    government alone is insufficient. Luckily, Taiwan has a robust
    civil society with a strong will to defend democracy. I had the
    honor of serving as the chief commander of the Wild Lily
    Student Movement in 1990, calling for the democratic election
    of our Parliament. Decades later, as a professor in 2014, I was
    even prouder to be part of the Sunflower Movement, witnessing
    the younger generations successfully opposing deeper economic
    integration with China.
        Through struggles like this, our society has built a strong
    democratic tradition. Even now, as I am speaking, Taiwan is in
    the middle of an unprecedented mass recall campaign launched by
    civic volunteer groups. The vote will take place this coming
    Saturday. Thirty-one of the KMT's 36 elected district
    legislators are facing bottom-up recall, because many Taiwanese
    believe these lawmakers have forgotten that the KMT used to be
    an anti-communist party.
        As Taiwanese, we know that our freedom did not fall from
    the sky. Generations of Taiwanese have fought and made
    sacrifices for our own democracy. We are working very hard to
    prevent a war from happening. However, Taiwan alone will not be
    enough to deter China's aggression. As you must all be aware,
    Taiwan security is not only critical to the stability of the
    region but also key to the global economy. Standing with
    Taiwan, we can work together to protect our shared values,
    prosperity, and the rules-based global order. Thank you all for
    your time and support.
        [The prepared statement of Fan Yun appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Sullivan. Well, thank you, MP Fan. And I want to
    thank you for testifying today and for your courage over many
    years and decades on these important issues. And we very much
    appreciate you participating in this important hearing.
        Now we are going to turn to our next panel. We are joined
    by three distinguished panelists to discuss the intricacies of
    the PRC's multifaceted campaign against Taiwan and others. I
    would like everybody to please take their positions, and I'm
    going to introduce each of our witnesses today, starting with
    Rear Admiral Mike Studeman.

                                    Panel II

        I'd like to welcome retired Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, a
    former commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
    Throughout his career, Admiral Studeman has led intelligence
    operations at every level, from the tactical to the strategic,
    and supported combat operations including Desert Storm, the
    Balkans, and Afghanistan. Admiral Studeman's joint assignments
    as a flag officer included director of intelligence for the
    Nation's largest combatant command, INDOPACOM, where I first
    got to meet and know Admiral Studeman when our military billets
    overlapped, and as the director of intelligence for the U.S.
    Southern Command in Miami. He has held major command posts as a
    captain, including the Joint Intelligence Operations Center for
    U.S. Cyber Command. And Admiral Studeman currently serves as a
    national security fellow at MITRE and is on the board of
    advisors of the National Bureau of Asian Research. Admiral,
    thank you for your decades of service to our country. We
    appreciate you being here.
        I also want to introduce Mr. Peter Mattis, who's president
    of the Jamestown Foundation. Mr. Mattis previously served as a
    staff director on this very Commission from 2019 to 2021,
    appointed by then-Senator Marco Rubio, now our distinguished
    Secretary of State. So welcome home, welcome back. During his
    time as staff director at the CECC, he was part of the
    legislative team that passed and wrote the Hong Kong Human
    Rights and Democracy Act, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act,
    the Tibetan Policy and Support Act, and the Uyghur Forced Labor
    Prevention Act. So thank you very much, Peter, for your great
    work here.
        And finally, I want to introduce our third witness, Dr.
    Audrye Wong. Dr. Wong is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the
    American Enterprise Institute and assistant professor of
    political science and international relations at the University
    of Southern California. Her research covers China's economic
    statecraft, as well as China's foreign influence activities and
    propaganda campaigns. Dr. Wong received a Ph.D. in security
    studies from Princeton University's School of Public and
    International Affairs, where she was a National Science
    Foundation graduate fellow.
        We have a very distinguished panel. We will begin with
    opening statements from each of our witnesses. Admiral, we will
    begin with you.

            STATEMENT OF MICHAEL W. STUDEMAN, REAR ADMIRAL,
             USN (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, OFFICE OF NAVAL
                              INTELLIGENCE

        Admiral Studeman. Sir, thank you. Good morning, Chairman
    Sullivan, Co-chairman Smith, and distinguished members of this
    Commission. I appreciate the kind introduction, and also, in
    addition to our time in Hawaii together in the four-star
    admiral's office, it was great to have you come over to the
    Office of Naval Intelligence for our chat. I value that greatly
    and hopefully it was useful to you. I spent 35 years in the
    military and at least half a dozen tours dealing with Indo-
    Pacific matters in one way or another. Thank you for the
    opportunity to appear before you to discuss PRC political
    warfare against Taiwan.
        I'd like to open by describing my direct engagements with
    Taiwan over recent years. I visited Taiwan three times as the
    director of intelligence for INDOPACOM. I happened to be the
    first two-star active-duty flag or general officer to visit
    Taiwan in over 40 years when I flew to Taipei to brief
    President Tsai in 2021. I was directed by the NSC and the
    Office of the Secretary of Defense to outline PRC military
    courses of action, up to an invasion. During this briefing, and
    another one I delivered a year later in 2022 to share lessons
    from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I highlighted the most
    serious threats to Taiwan's survival.
        While we mainly discussed high-intensity combat operations
    under modern conditions, one of the major points that I made
    was that Taiwan wouldn't survive if it only focused on an
    outside-in strategy of hardening its outer shell with military
    forces. Taiwan would need to apply equal efforts at
    strengthening its gooey center to ward off threats from the
    inside. Decades of PRC political warfare machinations have
    created vulnerabilities inside Taiwan that the PRC wouldn't
    hesitate to exploit during an attempted takeover. Taiwan would
    need to get real about these pre-existing, omni-
    directional threats.
        This conversation naturally led to discussions that went
    beyond merely stopping the PRC offshore or on the beaches, to
    improving defense-in-depth capabilities, urban operations,
    strengthening internal security, counterintelligence, fostering
    better civil-military coordination, and the merits of
    mobilizing society to engage in ``people's war''-like actions
    that allow an inferior to defeat a superior. After my
    presentation, President Tsai declared that she had waited four
    years for such a briefing. And she came over to me, in the time
    of COVID, and we knocked elbows.
        To Taiwan's credit, they had already passed an anti-
    infiltration act in 2020 and taken other measures to protect
    themselves over time. But in the three years since those
    engagements that I had out in Taiwan, and as the PRC became
    more aggressive in all domains, Taipei has done even more to
    strengthen its porcupine defenses, including by fielding more
    asymmetric capabilities, and has undertaken a range of
    judicious measures to better protect itself internally. In my
    written testimony, I provided a specific list of actions Taiwan
    has taken or is in the process of taking to deal with
    persistent PRC attempts to co-opt, subvert, and manipulate
    Taiwan citizens.
        You should know that Beijing's political warfare efforts
    are relentless, pervasive, and all-encompassing. The aim of CCP
    political warfare is to isolate Taiwan internationally, weaken
    domestic support for either de jure or de facto independence,
    and soften the Taiwanese people's resistance to annexation.
    Beijing uses all instruments of national power to convince the
    Taiwan people that unification is inevitable and resistance is
    futile. It may be useful to think about Beijing's political
    warfare efforts as a highly orchestrated, interconnected, and
    multitiered set of activities that include white, gray, and
    black elements.
        White, or overt means, involve CCP diplomatic actions,
    official media propaganda, military operations, and trade
    relations that are all used as levers of influence. Gray, or
    semi-overt means, involve such actions as Chinese coast guard,
    maritime militia, and ghost fleet encroachments in the maritime
    space, the use of foreign media to propagate and reinforce
    disinformation, funding and manipulation of political parties,
    discounted junkets for politicians, academics, journalists, and
    students to visit China where they're then influenced by United
    Front Work Department reps, and co-optation of social media
    influencers and celebrities, and so much more. Black, or covert
    means, involve agents in place for the purpose of espionage,
    influence, and/or sabotage, recruitment of former Taiwan
    military, police, and coast guard personnel, establishment of
    sleeper cells and weapons caches, offensive cyber operations,
    and activation of criminal groups such as the Triads in Taiwan,
    for various purposes ranging from harassment to potential
    assassinations.
        I have offered a number of ideas about how the U.S. might
    assist Taiwan in dealing with these clear and present dangers.
    A few of them include helping to strategically reduce Taiwan's
    international isolation, further encouraging Taiwan to spend
    more of its GDP on defense, while giving due regard to their
    political and industrial realities, developing deeper Taiwan
    and U.S. cooperation on cyber-
    security and helping Taiwan upgrade its classified clearance
    system and adopt more advanced insider threat technologies.
    Thank you for the chance to testify. I look forward to your
    Q&A.
        [The prepared statement of Admiral Studeman appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Admiral. And thanks again for
    your decades of service. You are truly one of the experts in
    the world, certainly in the United States, on these issues.
    It's great to have you here.
        Turning to another expert, Mr. Mattis. The floor is yours.

                      STATEMENT OF PETER MATTIS,
                  PRESIDENT, THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION

        Mr. Mattis. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Sullivan,
    and Co-chairman Smith, and all the other members of the
    Commission. You know, this is a little bit of an odd hearing
    for the CECC, but I think it's important to recognize that all
    the tools that are applied against Taiwan are also applied in
    other areas that the CECC cares a great deal about. These are
    fungible political tools that can be leveraged for these
    things. As awareness of the Central Committee's United Front
    Work Department has grown, never mind that there's an entire
    policy system associated with it, I don't think the awareness
    has grown of the approach.
        It is sort of a theory of politics or a practice of
    politics that the Party pursues. And it is fundamentally one
    that is defined by warfare and struggle, because it is about
    how you identify your friends, how you mobilize them, and how
    you use them to convert neutrals and to strike or isolate your
    enemies. This is language that has been clear and consistent.
    Xi Jinping has used it, and it has been used all the way back
    to the founding of the Party in the 1920's. As Admiral Studeman
    said, this is a global perpetual campaign against Taiwan,
    against the idea of the Republic of China, that this somehow
    has gone away, much less any sort of political future of Taiwan
    that is separate from the PRC and what the Party chooses to
    define as China.
        I think it's worth noting that for decades the Party's
    intentions have been clear, in part because there are many
    people that would like to deny that the CCP, using its armed
    wing, the People's Liberation Army, would choose to attack
    Taiwan. There are all sorts of reasons that this would be a
    terrible outcome. It could have trillions of dollars of
    consequences for the global economy. But we need to appreciate
    that this is where the Party's intentions are and where they
    have said this. It's easy to dismiss this as propaganda, but
    the statements that have been made are not simply speeches.
    They are directed at Party cadres to guide them, to mobilize
    them, to tell them what is expected of their work. This is one
    of the objectives that they're going after.
        The second is to look at the way the CCP has treated what
    it considers to be Chinese people, whether you're talking about
    Uyghurs in East Turkestan, whether you're talking about
    Tibetans or Mongolians, but also many, many other Chinese. If
    you look at the statistics, something like 40 to 80 million
    people have died under the CCP, depending on how you count the
    Great Leap Forward and the famine that ensued, things like the
    suppression campaign of Sichuan, supposedly after liberation,
    that killed hundreds of thousands of people, led by the so-
    called reformer Deng Xiaoping. This is the kind of fate that is
    actually awaiting the Taiwanese if the island is conquered.
        The third is that the CCP has been willing to take far
    higher costs to do certain things than external observers have
    ever been willing to give them credit for. If you ask most
    Americans who are aware of the 1979 war with Vietnam, they will
    say Vietnam won based on the casualties--based only on the
    casualties that Beijing took. But if you look at the political
    objectives, did Vietnam learn the lessons that Beijing wanted
    them to, did the Soviet Union learn the lessons that Beijing
    wanted them to, did you look at the way in which the United
    States sort of responded positively and rewarded Deng Xiaoping
    for that war? They achieved everything politically. And last
    time I checked, war was about achieving some sort of political
    objective.
        As Admiral Studeman mentioned, the intelligence
    cyberattacks inside Taiwan have been really quite remarkable.
    And there are a few new things that are worth highlighting,
    even though this has been constant. The first is that some
    sources have been forced to record videos professing their
    loyalty to the PRC, to be held for a time of war to be used for
    propaganda purposes--here are other military officers or other
    soldiers saying, Oh, well, actually, I profess my loyalty to
    the PRC. Another is the targeting of the military police
    command, which has sort of increasingly stepped up, because
    this is the presidential protection detail. It is about
    learning about where the leader is at all times and
    demonstrating real-time awareness of this, because one of the
    lessons they learned from the Ukraine war is that you don't
    want smart political leadership to survive.
        Internationally, we've seen a number of different things
    from the campaign to get countries to move recognition from the
    ROC to the PRC. And this is something where, when you look at
    the countries that have done this, like the Solomon Islands and
    others, you can see a concerted effort to build influence with
    key politicians, mostly through the united front system or
    through companies like Huawei investing in a telecom
    restructure in one province or another, to essentially build a
    relationship and make the flip happen by cultivating those
    individual leaders. More than 600 Taiwanese in the last decade
    have been extradited to the PRC from other countries. You know,
    if there's something more fundamental about sovereignty than
    your ability to take care of your citizens, it's hard to
    imagine what that would be.
        There have been perpetual efforts, especially since the
    beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to use
    U.N. Resolution 2758 to say that the U.N. has already settled
    what has taken place, it's already settled Taiwan's status, has
    already settled that Taiwan is a part of China. And all it
    simply said is that the ROC cannot represent China in the U.N.
    and that the PRC was the representative of that. In
    international organizations, the CECC was the organization
    responsible for highlighting that the World Bank was supporting
    the vocational training programs that were a disguise for mass
    incarceration and labor transfer programs in the Xinjiang
    Uyghur Autonomous Region. Well, the same tools that allowed
    them to do that--control over budget and H.R. in the World
    Bank--are also what allowed them to block the Taiwanese from
    working at the World Bank, except on anything other than a
    short-term contract.
        So all of this is really about trying to undermine Taiwan
    as a polity, as a society, as a separate, distinct political
    entity. And pushing back against this is, in fact, going to be
    a political act. Taiwan's politicians are going to have to
    decide about what is okay in terms of business, in terms of
    education, in terms of culture, in terms of entertainment, in
    terms of travel. What is acceptable or not? These are difficult
    decisions. Look at our own discussion about research security
    and how we cooperate with PRC companies. It is a deeply
    political question. And it's going to require presidents and
    parliamentarians in Taiwan to mobilize their population to talk
    about these issues in ways--about what the political choice
    is--what do we want to do?
        And we really shouldn't punish Taiwan's politicians for
    having to carry on a conversation in a democracy, because the
    country that is actually destabilizing the status quo, which is
    of an ROC and a PRC that actually exists, is Beijing. It is the
    Chinese Communist Party. And we should punish those that are
    actually responsible.
        [The prepared statement of Peter Mattis appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Mattis.
        Now, before we turn to Dr. Wong, I know Senator Kim has to
    leave here in a minute. Do you want to ask the witnesses any
    questions before you head out? Okay.
        And then I'd like Chairman Smith to be able to say a few
    words if you'd like to, sir, in welcome. And then we'll turn to
    Dr. Wong for her testimony. And then we'll open up for all
    members for questions. So, Mr. Chairman, the floor is yours.

    STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY
                      AND CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-
                     EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

        Co-chair Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
    the tremendous experience that you bring to bear as the new
    chairman of this Commission. You know, nobody knows Taiwan like
    you do, and you have been a true leader when it comes to
    Taiwan, both when you wore the uniform and now. So I can't
    thank you enough. That enhances this Commission in a very real
    way. You know, I've been on the Commission for decades. I've
    chaired it, co-chaired it. I'm so glad to work with you. It's a
    privilege. And so I want to thank you for that.
        I do have a full opening statement. I was late because I
    was giving a major address on human trafficking. I had a lot of
    questions from people, so I couldn't get out of there in time.
    I apologize for my lateness. I won't go through my opening
    statement. Maybe at the end I will, but I thank our witnesses.
    You know, this Commission has made a difference over the years.
    Just ask Xi Jinping's Chinese Communist Party what they think
    of it. I'm barred, like so many other people, from going to
    China, in large part because of the work that we do here. I see
    Pastor Fu behind you, just a tremendous leader on religious
    freedom--especially on mainland China.
        You know, we need to do more. We need human rights issues
    to be even more front and center than they are. I would note
    for the record, and I say this not as a partisan thing--I
    actually wrote op-eds on it. Nancy Pelosi and I were joined on
    this years ago when Bill Clinton delinked human rights and
    trade on May 26th, 1994. That's when we lost China. They took
    the measure of us and said the only thing they care about in
    Washington is trade. Clinton, you know, having been an
    outspoken linkage guy to human rights and trade, totally
    delinked them on a Friday afternoon, when everybody was leaving
    here. I did a press conference. Speaker Pelosi did a press
    conference. And we all said, How could you? I mean, the people
    of China had been hurt. The people of Taiwan, I think, by
    extension, are further at risk because of the Chinese Communist
    Party being so emboldened, enabled.
        And then, from a military point of view, the dual-use items
    that were conveyed to them beginning then, have made them a
    superpower militarily. And that is very tragic. And it was
    all--I say it again--all preventable. Others have enabled it
    over the years, but that was the pivotal time when we lost
    China. And I'm not the only one who thought that. We had the
    votes to sustain linking MFN with trade. And what happened? We
    never got the vote because it was all taken away with that one
    fell swoop of the executive order that delinked human rights
    and trade.
        So we've been playing catch-up ever since. For the victims
    of--name the abuse--forced organ harvesting and all the other
    abuses that are committed daily by Xi Jinping. He poses an
    existential threat to Taiwan. And, again, to have people who
    know it, live it, understand it--we need to do more. We have a
    chairman who understands Taiwan like nobody else in the U.S.
    House or Senate. So we are very blessed to have that. Again,
    I'll put my full statement on the record, but I want to thank
    you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to serving with you.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Chris Smith appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You, too. Thank
    you very much. And thanks for your leadership and passion.
    We're going to get a lot done here.
        Dr. Wong, you're up. And welcome.

              STATEMENT OF AUDRYE WONG, JEANE KIRKPATRICK
               FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE AND
             ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND
            INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN
                               CALIFORNIA

        Ms. Wong. Chairman Sullivan and Congressman Smith,
    honorable members of the Commission, thank you for the
    invitation to testify today. In my remarks, I'd like to
    highlight a few main points. First, transnational repression
    against the Taiwanese diaspora and supporters of Taiwan is the
    tip of the spear of broader PRC political influence efforts in
    the United States and other free societies. Such activities are
    driven in large part by the United Front Work Department, a CCP
    organ that seeks to co-opt allies and silence enemies
    domestically and abroad. And so in the context of Taiwan, that
    means suppressing supporters of Taiwanese democracy and
    independence and pushing the CCP's sovereignty claims and
    narratives over Taiwan's status.
        Transnational repression and political influence activities
    consist of multipronged community and political mobilization to
    not only engage in direct surveillance and harassment of Taiwan
    supporters on U.S. soil but also to rally portions of the
    overseas Chinese and Chinese American communities to engage in
    public and highly visible displays of support for Beijing's
    position on Taiwan. We have official united front organizations
    like the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful
    Reunification, which has multiple branches in the United States
    and globally, with the explicit goal of asserting Beijing's
    sovereignty claims over Taiwan. But these influence activities
    also involve the co-optation and mobilization of a broader
    array of overseas Chinese hometown associations and other
    grassroots organizations.
        So if you look at Chinese writings on the united front,
    they explicitly call for these societal organizations and
    overseas Chinese community leaders and elites to play a role in
    promoting Beijing's interests, including regarding Taiwan.
    These groups are often rallied, often in tandem with the
    Chinese consulate, for public demonstrations and protests, for
    example, around former Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen's
    transit through New York and Los Angeles in late March and
    early April 2023.
        Through open-source research, examining online videos and
    photos of these events, I was able to identify close to 30
    groups involved in on-the-ground demonstrations. And there was
    one protest leader that claimed that over a hundred of these
    community associations were represented in these
    demonstrations. They gathered outside Tsai Ing-wen's hotel, or
    in L.A., outside the Reagan Presidential Library, where
    President Tsai met then-Speaker McCarthy, waving Chinese and
    American flags, shouting slogans such as ``Tsai Ing-wen's a
    traitor'' and holding banners proclaiming Taiwan as part of
    China.
        These protests also illuminate another trend that we're
    seeing, which is that the Chinese government also seeks to co-
    opt Western voices and form tactical alignments with domestic
    interest groups such as far left, anti-imperialist movements in
    the United States. So in these protests in New York and Los
    Angeles, we see a number of these anti-war, anti-imperialist
    groups, like Code Pink, ANSWER Coalition, and Pivot to Peace,
    protesting alongside Chinese groups--overseas Chinese
    associations and united front-linked groups as well.
        In their messaging they're framing U.S. support for Taiwan
    as part of U.S. imperialism and warmongering, and reframing
    China's position as one of preserving peace and the status quo.
    And so by extension, this implicitly recognizes Beijing
    sovereignty claims over Taiwan. The Chinese government may not
    be directly controlling these groups, but they see this as a
    way to further legitimize its narratives and reframe the Taiwan
    issue.
        And perhaps even more worryingly, we're seeing united front
    actors reshaping the political landscape in the United States
    in favor of pro-Beijing actors, while suppressing supporters of
    Taiwan, with the goal of reshaping the public discussions and
    political discourse around the Taiwan issue. My own research
    and other reporting has examined how these Chinese Communist
    Party-linked groups and individuals not only try to get
    positions as political aides and power brokers in local and
    state politics, for example, but also are trying to
    increasingly act as a political machine of sorts, to try to get
    pro-Beijing individuals into elective office.
        So the Chinese government is playing identity politics,
    exploiting contentious social and political issues--such as
    anti-Asian hate and public safety--with the goal of gaining
    currency among overseas Chinese populations and legitimizing
    Beijing-linked individuals and organizations as grassroots
    leaders that are defending the community's interests and
    rights. This mobilization then in turn serves as a foundation
    for Beijing's political machine to field preferred candidates
    and rally votes to get them elected. And this has direct
    implications for the Taiwan issue, as well as other issues that
    the Beijing government--the Chinese government--cares about.
        As one example, in New York City last year during the
    election, a Republican candidate endorsed by united front
    groups won a tight state senate race against a Taiwan-born
    Democrat incumbent, Iwen Chu, who had attended a dinner when
    Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen transited through New York in
    2023. And so these political influence tactics, even at the
    state and municipal levels, can have a very powerful trickle-up
    effect where you get politicians who may be increasingly
    aligned with Beijing's interests or beholden to CCP-linked
    actors. This has the ultimate effect of influencing broader
    policy discourse on Taiwan, on Xinjiang, on human rights, and
    in China, in favor of the Chinese government's positions.
        Now just to conclude with two points, reiterating that the
    actors and tactics used in these cases are just part of a
    broader pattern of intensifying PRC influence activities, not
    just stamping out Taiwanese ``separatism,'' but also trying to
    shape narratives and policies on Hong Kong, on Xinjiang, and
    even getting involved in U.S. politics. And the second point
    I'd like to conclude with is that these CCP political influence
    and interference operations include, but go beyond,
    transnational repression.
        So there's definitely coercion, intimidation, surveillance,
    but alongside that, there are also a lot of broader attempts at
    co-optation and control of overseas Chinese communities, who
    can have very diverse viewpoints and diverse backgrounds.
    They're really trying to change beliefs and behavior and have
    the broader goal of ultimately shaping U.S. discourse on Taiwan
    and other issues that the Chinese Communist Party cares about.
    Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Audrye Wong appears in the
    Appendix.]
                                  ----------

        Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Dr. Wong. And thank you for your
    courage in testifying on a lot of these issues. We have votes
    and other hearings, so we're going to be kind of moving in and
    out here, some of the members, but I'll begin with my
    questioning of all the panelists. We'll have 5-minute rounds of
    questions.
        Let me begin just with the most basic question that I
    think--and I'd like to open it up to all of you--that I think
    every American should be aware of. You know, there's
    transnational issues all over the world, of course, but can you
    describe--and you already did it, Dr. Wong, but in other ways
    for other witnesses--how is the Chinese Communist Party on all
    of these issues taking action in America? That's the one that
    really boils my blood. So you mentioned it. You know, are they
    trying to influence our elections?
        By the way, the irony of that is huge. Xi Jinping and the
    Chinese Communist Party, they would never stand for elections.
    They fear their own people. We know that. But they're going to
    come and try and influence American elections? That is just
    unacceptable. And I don't care if you're a Democrat,
    Republican, Independent--no American would want the Chinese
    Communist Party trying to influence our elections when these
    authoritarians would never have the guts to stand for their own
    elections. So that's number one.
        But also in terms of intimidation. How are they
    intimidating either Taiwanese citizens who are in the United
    States, Chinese citizens who are in the United States, or, more
    important from my perspective, Taiwanese Americans, Chinese
    Americans, Hong Kong Americans? How is the Chinese Communist
    Party trying to intimidate American citizens? You know, we read
    about these crazy police stations in New York City. We need to
    know about this, because this is completely unacceptable. And I
    guarantee you, heck, even Code Pink might be against this, Dr.
    Wong, if the Chinese Communist Party is in our country trying
    to influence our wonderful democracy.
        So can I get some exact examples from all of you of how
    they're trying to do that--either through influencing our
    elections or intimidating American citizens of Taiwanese or
    Chinese or Hong Kong origin, to be quiet? And what should we do
    about it? I'm really interested in this question. And I think
    every single American--we need to know more about it. If the
    Chinese Communist Party is in America doing all these things,
    boy oh boy, that is unacceptable. And I guarantee you, every
    single American would agree with that. So you want to start,
    Admiral? Do you have a sense of this?
        Admiral Studeman. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you bringing
    this up. Probably the least discussed topic within the United
    States of America today, that requires the most discussion and
    action. I think it's fair to say that there's been a silent
    invasion of the United States. There was a book that was
    written----
        Chair Sullivan. ``Silent Invasion.''
        Admiral Studeman. ``Silent Invasion.'' There's a book
    written about that when Australia faced the same kinds of
    things, and they addressed it. And they've taken measures to
    better protect themselves. And we need to do so as well. I have
    a list of things that maybe would provoke some thought here
    about examples of Chinese influence. First of all, Hollywood
    remains beholden to CCP censors. And they're actively painting
    a benevolent PRC. And so we don't have the entertainment
    industry that's available to describe these things to the
    American people in a way that they might over time come to
    understand, particularly if they distrust government. But
    government itself has failed, I think, to be able to describe
    also----
        Chair Sullivan. I want to make sure you get through your
    list. But just on that, ``Hollywood is beholden to Chinese
    communist censors.'' That's a pretty dramatic statement.
    Hollywood's very powerful in America, around the world. Do they
    go to the masters in Beijing and say, Please, Mr. Xi Jinping,
    is it okay to do a movie or not? How bad is that?
        Admiral Studeman. There is less dependency today on the
    Chinese market because many movies can't actually go there and
    profit the way they used to. But for many years, the movie
    makers would, in fact--if they wanted to sell their movie in
    China, they would allow their scripts to be reviewed by the
    CCP's censors. And over time they knew what the left and right
    limits were, and then they could self-censor, which is actually
    a metric of the success of political warfare--when you self-
    censor because you know what you're supposed to say and not
    say.
        Chair Sullivan. Yes. That's shameful.
        Admiral Studeman. Right. Other issues--universities have
    been hooked on Chinese tuition dollars. Academic freedom has
    been threatened. There are examples of this. Scientific and
    laboratory cooperation continues to transfer the seeds of
    innovation to the Chinese. There's been recruitment of ethnic
    Chinese from inside the U.S. Government and businesses,
    influence attempts at the local and state level designed to
    create dependencies that then the Chinese can leverage,
    including pressure on the federal system. Multimedia influence
    operations with Chinese-owned or -influenced media capabilities
    in our country and globally. Purchase of property near U.S.-
    sensitive facilities and bases, which we're getting after, of
    course, thanks to Congress's help.
        We have operations inside U.S. critical infrastructure that
    CISA has talked about. But this is at the national level all
    the way down to the municipal level in the United States. Cyber
    espionage has been well covered, but that continues to be $200
    billion to $600 billion--that's trillions of dollars of U.S.
    intellectual property that has gone over to fuel China's
    modernization and their rise. Also buying stakes in U.S.
    companies to get tech secrets. All of these are part of
    standard CCP exploitation and malign actions. There's been
    discussion about many of these things. We've taken certain
    actions to strengthen our capabilities. But I think we have a
    long way to go.
        Chair Sullivan. Great. Thank you.
        Mr. Mattis.
        Mr. Mattis. I think you can find worldwide some examples of
    the CCP trying to influence elections. But real power is not
    caring what the election outcome is because you've cultivated
    the people around a candidate or a candidate themselves. And
    when you look at the targeting in Taiwan, the United States----
        Chair Sullivan. I want to stay with the U.S.
        Mr. Mattis. No, no, it is the same piece. You can see
    examples. What you see in Canada, what you see in the United
    States, is what you see in Taiwan, Australia, elsewhere. And it
    is the effort to cultivate the individual candidates and the
    people around them because, you know, today's council member,
    today's mayor, is tomorrow's governor, tomorrow's senator. So
    you can cultivate people going through the system and shape the
    way they understand China, the PRC, Taiwan.
        And if you think about how you interact with your
    constituents, you don't call every single constituent and try
    to get them to a place. You go to the Kiwanis Club, the Rotary
    Club, you go to schools, you go to places where people gather.
    And that's the core of what Audrye was describing with the
    united front system, of cultivating these organizations so that
    when you say, Ah, I've got 500,000 Chinese Americans as
    constituents, maybe I need to go find a way to speak to them,
    these groups are fundamentally stealing their voice as citizens
    and now representing the Party, pretending that they're
    representing American citizens to you, to say, Here's what we
    want, even though that ``we'' is actually the Party, not those
    supposed groups.
        And that's one of the ways that those groups are, in fact,
    dangerous. That it's the Party taking the people's voice and
    providing it. Another way is the cultivation of officials. If
    you think about the charges that were put against Linda Sun, a
    former New York State government official, she was a liaison to
    the Asian American community. If you were a Taiwanese American
    or if you were Uyghur American and you were going through her,
    you were seeing things blocked. You were not getting a response
    from the state government. And pro-PRC interests that were
    being represented through the state would continue to funnel
    through and reach the attention of state officials.
        So you could see someone who is blocking these issues out,
    not representing all of the Americans that she ostensibly
    represented, or that New York State represents, but only those
    that Linda Sun and the people that she worked with from the PRC
    government approved of. And so you can continue looking at all
    of these examples. But what we're talking about is really
    threats to economic opportunity and creation of economic
    opportunities. The payoff to Linda Sun was that her husband got
    a lot of contracts, to the tune of several million dollars,
    allegedly, from the PRC. And so it's much harder to go after
    those kinds of relationships because they're a problem. And
    this is why it is a conversation that has to be discussed--has
    to be discussed publicly--what's acceptable, what's not--
    because we're not going to arrest our way out of this.
        Chair Sullivan. Dr. Wong, do you have a view on this?
        Ms. Wong. Yes, I think, just building on what Peter said
    and my previous comments, I think it's a very challenging issue
    because, you know, it's not just the CCP claiming to represent
    the voices of Chinese Americans or anyone of ethnic Chinese
    descent. Because the CCP sees all ethnic Chinese as having some
    inherent or innate affinity or loyalty to China and the Chinese
    government, even though that is certainly not the case.
        So that is a threat not just to national security but also
    to the strength of our democracy and the rights and liberties
    of Chinese American communities and overseas Chinese. And as
    Peter mentioned, this comes about because of reliance on these
    community liaisons who come out of the woodwork and say: I'm
    here to get your votes. And so it's easy for politicians and
    political candidates who rely on that as a way. And that
    element of patronage politics provides a way for foreign
    influence and interference to operate in U.S. elections.
        And the dominant way that the CCP tries to influence U.S.
    elections is through positioning themselves as the sole
    representative, spinning the narrative that the Chinese
    government is the only one looking out for Chinese Americans
    and ethnic Chinese communities. And so using this identity-
    based mobilization and getting involved in community organizing
    to position themselves as leaders of these communities, and to
    say, We are here to take care of you; the American political
    system is marginalizing your voice. And that is a way to
    weaponize a lot of the social and political issues within the
    United States, to drive a wedge between these overseas Chinese
    communities and the broader American society. And so I think
    that's a really important trend to note.
        And I think another example--you asked about intimidation
    of Taiwanese or Chinese Americans--in academia and higher
    education, where some of this united front influence has
    permeated these campuses where, again, you see some zealous
    Chinese students or Chinese student organizations taking up the
    mantle of CCP interest, for a range of reasons . . . could be
    sort of ideological support. It could be sort of practical
    career incentives, a desire to get a leg up, you know, when
    they return home, and then get the job.
        There are these incentives to associate with the Chinese
    consulate, to get resources, and to engage in peer monitoring
    surveillance of other Chinese students on campus to report on
    potential events, potential ways that supporters of Taiwan or
    opponents or critics of the CCP regime are exercising their
    freedom of speech on campus. So I think that is another
    complementary element of transnational repression.
        Chair Sullivan. Great. Thank you.
        I'm going to head to a vote, speaking of voting and
    democracy. And I will turn it over to Chairman Smith for more
    questions. And I will be back after this vote.
        Co-chair Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, again, thank
    you to our very distinguished witnesses.
        A couple of questions. You know, we all have 5 minutes so I
    will be as brief as I can. Is the U.S. Government doing enough,
    using all of the assets we have--including the FBI--to combat
    this repression that's happening within our own borders? Is
    there a resolve there? Are sufficient numbers of people--I
    mean, we do have a transnational repression act that we're
    trying to get passed in the House. But that said, there are
    already authorities there. Are they doing enough?
        Second, after Afghanistan--I read the Global Times all the
    time. I was in it once when they put me on their hit list and
    sanctions list. But my question is, after Afghanistan there was
    one editorial after another to the people of Taiwan that the
    United States will not have your back. And they cited the
    withdrawal from Afghanistan as proof positive. Has that abated,
    with the new president? Or is it still a part of their
    narrative?
        Third, on offshore wind, I've been leading the effort in
    the House in exposing that offshore wind carries egregious
    negative consequences to radar, where you will not see your own
    planes, ships will not see ships that are right in front of
    them. The National Academy of Sciences did in 2022 a big,
    thick, voluminous, well-
    documented, heavily footnoted study that said there's no
    workaround. Radars will be rendered inferior, if not defunct
    completely. And yet we're looking to build them off my coast,
    and I'm fighting them like crazy.
        Taiwan has a similar problem. And I know academics and
    others have spoken about the impact it might have on their
    national security. Admiral, you might want to speak to that,
    because I think if you're blind, you don't see what's coming,
    and your own planes can't even operate in a way that's
    effective, then you've got a problem. If you could maybe speak
    to that. Even in Norway and countries that are afraid of Putin,
    they have been raising alarms about offshore wind. And there
    are five studies. The most important one of all is the National
    Academy of Sciences. And they have said, watch out. You know,
    we have a real problem with this in terms of our national
    security and aviation, that's civilian as well.
        On this issue--right behind you is Bob Fu. Two weeks ago,
    there was a big gathering right here in the capital on the
    oppression of the Muslim Uyghurs. His wife was accosted by a
    provocateur who got this close to her in order to incite
    something. Bob's house, when it was in Texas, had all of these
    people from the Chinese Communist Party making life miserable.
    He had to move. Another manifestation of this transnational
    repression. So, again, going back to the first question, how
    well or poorly are we doing? Is it a priority?
        Admiral Studeman. Thanks for the question. I think there's
    been substantial effort that's been expended over many years.
    But too few people, with too little capacity, with too little
    awareness and education of the American public, have been
    striving to deal with these issues. And so instead of it being
    sub rosa or something we just simply can't find a way to talk
    about, I think we need to actually let sunlight be the best
    disinfectant and work on the political education of our people
    on exactly what's going on. People tend to think the tyranny
    and spy games and things that you read about in the 20th
    century with the Cold War are over. Tyranny never dies. It's
    actually resurging in more places and more forms than ever
    before. And we have to deal with it.
        And it's going to require everybody in the country, every
    citizen, to be alert, to be vigilant, to know what is
    happening, in order for them to be able to take care of those
    things at the earliest possible stage and not simply rely on
    consequence management from the Federal Government all the
    time. But this is going to require, in my humble opinion, a
    national conversation. And it's going to have to be led by
    various key influencers in lots of different sectors in our
    society. And we haven't had that conversation yet. This is one
    thing we should all agree on when it comes to the security and
    the prosperity of our country and so many others.
        I wrote an op-ed at one point and I recommended that we
    have an apolitical spokesperson for China matters, who
    essentially is up at the White House, who has credentials, who
    isn't a political, to be able to do press conferences and
    explain to the American people how to connect the dots about
    Chinese stratagems and ambitions; how they relate to other red
    or malicious actors, because they're working together with
    Russia and others; and then how to think through how all these
    things are connected. Until we have such a spokesperson, until
    we have the entertainment industry turn itself on and become
    patriotic and do their duty, I'm afraid this will still be
    something that, without situational awareness, only a few
    people will be able to tackle.
        Co-chair Smith. Do you want to speak about the offshore
    wind?
        Admiral Studeman. On offshore wind on Taiwan, I would just
    tell you that they need to go green to diversify their energy
    sources. They can't be so beholden to liquid natural gas. That
    is a chokepoint that the Chinese could potentially squeeze in a
    crisis. And so diversification is really important. I agree
    with the solar and the wind steps that they've taken. I believe
    they need to have at least one nuclear plant to stay viable.
    And I think they need to think through other resilience methods
    so that they deny the PRC an easy ability to cut off energy
    flows into Taiwan.
        Co-chair Smith. Okay.
        Mr. Mattis. I think I'll take the propaganda question
    first, which is, Has Beijing's message that the U.S. is
    unreliable abated? And the answer is no. It has been
    continuous. It has been reinforced. And one of the big trends
    in the way that the PRC has conducted political warfare against
    Taiwan, going back about eight or nine years, is a deliberate
    focus on Taiwanese pundits, people with platforms to speak to
    the Taiwanese people to try to push these narratives through.
    Because it's much easier to have it come through someone who is
    Taiwanese than it is to have it come through the Global Times,
    or the People's Daily, or some other mouthpiece.
        Is the U.S. doing enough? You know, we simply don't have
    enough resources and enough awareness. Because, as I mentioned
    before, you can't arrest your way out of this. We can't
    prosecute our way out of this. There's simply too many things
    and too many ways. And what we actually need is the good
    judgment of citizens that--you know, it might not be illegal,
    but it still may not be okay. We have lots of things, you know,
    as parents, as citizens, as people, as congressional members,
    as staffers, that, well, it's not illegal, but it's not really
    okay. We make these kinds of judgments. And to be able to have
    that awareness in the face of this information that's coming to
    you, or someone who's ostensibly a community leader who you
    think is speaking for a number of your constituents, it's hard
    to do that without a lot of awareness.
        And this is a place where we have not made a lot of
    investment. You may remember, Chairman Smith, the bilateral
    competition bills from the 116th and 117th Congresses. There
    was not a single dollar in what was about 2,000 total pages of
    legislation about funding education in the Chinese language,
    about replacing Confucius Institutes with Americans, or with
    Taiwanese, or with others, rather than a PRC-funded push to
    shape how universities behaved. This is a place where we're
    woefully underprepared in the U.S. Government. You know, one of
    the reasons why, for example, some of our regulations on China
    have been woefully underenforced was because some departments
    had to use Google Translate because they did not have a single
    Chinese speaker who could assist in the research that they were
    required to do to take policy action.
        So it is a bigger educational problem. Language is just one
    part of it, but it is a fundamental part of this, because the
    number of Chinese-language students in the United States peaked
    over a decade ago, I believe, in 2013. And it's been on a
    steady decline since. But that's simply not going to work with
    the need to have a public conversation about exploiting the
    need for the CCP to communicate to its people and its cadres
    and its collaborators out in the public, because they have to
    explain some of these things.
        Ms. Wong. Sure. I would agree that we definitely need more,
    rather than less, government resources to study and respond to
    these issues in a cross-agency and bipartisan manner. And that
    includes continuing to bolster the Foreign Influence Task Force
    at the FBI, or continuing dedicating resources to study foreign
    influence, foreign disinformation, and authoritarian
    propaganda. And so I think these are efforts that we need to be
    pushing forward, rather than scaling back.
        And I think it's important to do this not just at the
    federal level, but also at the sub-national level. So at the
    local and state levels, you know, increasing awareness among
    elected officials, among politicians and local governments,
    about the way the CCP works, united front works, the tactics of
    foreign influence and transnational repression, so that they
    have the capacity and, hopefully, the resources to understand
    how this works and then take the corresponding steps to tackle
    it. And, again, transparency is really important.
        The final point I want to make is that I think that also
    reducing Chinese influence on the ground also requires
    empowering and encouraging alternative legitimate voices in the
    form of grassroots organizations and legitimate Asian American
    community organizations, that are actually responsive to
    diverse local interests and needs, so that CCP voices are not
    able to dominate the community-organizing landscape, or
    political landscape, and claim to represent the Chinese
    American and Asian American communities.
        Co-chair Smith. Thank you, Dr. Wong.
        The chair recognizes Commissioner Dale Strong.
        Representative Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's an
    honor to join you today in my first hearing as a member of the
    Congressional-Executive Commission on China. First and
    foremost, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Speaker
    Johnson for the trust and confidence placed in me through this
    appointment. I'm deeply humbled by the opportunity and look
    forward to working collaboratively with all members of the
    Commission to advance our shared goals of promoting human
    rights, democracy, and the rule of law. I'm proud to represent
    Huntsville in North Alabama, a hub for all things research and
    innovation, throughout the defense, cyber, logistics, and
    aerospace sectors. This being said, I'm particularly excited
    about this Commission's work surrounding these topics.
        Admiral, how did China's gray zone tactics, like harassing
    ships near Taiwan, connect with its larger political and
    information campaigns against Taiwan? What's the strategic goal
    of this coordinated effort?
        Admiral Studeman. Thank you, Congressman. So multifaceted.
    One way to think about things, I think, beginning from the
    strategic, is that China's not going to work with the current
    president, President Lai. He is the worst possible political
    leader that they could envision, as somebody that talks about
    Taiwan as a sovereign nation and is willing to speak about this
    often, with much of his history being a firebrand about these
    issues. And so they believe that they should be penalizing not
    just the leadership--to show that they are less effective or
    ineffective in being able to defend Taiwan--but also punishing
    the voters that put him in power.
        And so they are stress testing Taiwan. They are trying to
    exhaust the military as part of that punitive effort. They are
    surrounding it to show that it will be cut off, that there will
    be no chance of rescue. This is a psychological warfare attempt
    to show that they won't have cavalry coming over the hill, or
    if it tries it can't get there. At the same time, they are
    changing and conditioning Taiwan to seeing more forces, more
    forward, more often, which if you're looking at it through
    military terms reduces your indications and warning. And it
    buys more surprise that the PRC can then use in the future, you
    know, should they plan a major military campaign.
        It's also a chance to rehearse, as Admiral Paparo in
    INDOPACOM has said, to give them practice in the actual wartime
    op areas here. So this is a strategic operation, and tactically
    something that the Chinese are doing to advantage themselves,
    but also to try to show that Taiwan has no hope of defending
    itself, even if there are intervening forces.
        Representative Strong. Admiral Studeman, in your opinion
    are U.S. lawmakers aware of how deep China's nonmilitary
    tactics, like propaganda or legal maneuvering, are woven into
    its long-term strategy and military plans for Taiwan?
        Admiral Studeman. I believe those who study this problem in
    foreign policy and military circles know it well. I don't think
    enough people, though, are educated on this facet of how the
    PRC works. It is all spectrum, all the time, all domains. It's
    more insidious than we want to give it credit for. And as my
    fellow panelists have described, this is ambiguous. This is
    truly a sort of gray zone. And so people don't know how to deal
    with it. If we don't talk about it and we don't equip them with
    a way of thinking about how to think--you know, respond to it,
    and do it in a judicious way that doesn't violate what we stand
    for in this democracy, still protecting free expression and
    other things that we're going to require to protect going
    forward. So I think we can do more to shine a light on those
    tactics. And there are people that are in positions of
    influence who should be doing it.
        Representative Strong. A little further into that, do you
    believe INDOPACOM is giving enough attention to information and
    political warfare? And are we ready to compete with China
    effectively in these areas?
        Admiral Studeman. INDOPACOM and many other combatant
    commands certainly get it. Much of Admiral Paparo's Prevail
    Strategy, as he calls it, has information highlighted in it. He
    describes that every military operation should be suffused with
    information elements. The problem is that one military officer
    in charge of the Pacific can't do it alone. When it comes to
    dealing with these things, you need support up the chain of
    command. And you need to have the National Security Council be
    working, interagency efforts, to use all instruments of
    national power, including the strategic messaging components
    that exist at the national level, to be able to support and
    complement what would be happening out in a place like
    INDOPACOM. This is where we've been weak. In fact, we are today
    gutting some of those diplomatic and informational capabilities
    that we're going to need to compete and contest in the very
    area that you talk about.
        Representative Strong. Mr. Mattis, how does espionage play
    a role in China's political warfare? And what effect does this
    have at the individual and societal level, both here in the
    United States and with our allies and partners?
        Mr. Mattis. First and foremost, espionage is an act of
    violating trust. And if you think about all of the interactions
    that are required, for example, in Congress, among staff, in an
    office, trust is fundamental to that issue. And so when you
    have these cases, when you have the weaponization of any
    connection to the PRC to try to gain access to information, you
    are breaking down the bonds of trust that allow government to
    work, that allow actions to be taken with some degree of
    appropriate secrecy, when governments need to act in those
    ways. And you inhibit the ability of a government to have a
    private conversation about how to deal with matters.
        How does it affect Taiwan? It affects the ability of the
    government to work with itself. It affects the trust that
    Taiwan's partners have in dealing with that government. It
    affects the kinds of decisions about what is acceptable to
    share, both in terms of information, what weapons are
    acceptable to sell, and what kind of interoperability or plans
    for interoperability are acceptable. These are all things that
    get factored in--or are all things that are affected by the
    CCP's espionage against Taiwan.
        Representative Strong. Thank you. My time has expired. Mr.
    Chairman, I yield back.
        Chair Sullivan. Thank you.
        Senator Kim.
        Senator Kim. Thank you. I just want to say I'm glad to be a
    part of this Commission and glad to work alongside the two of
    you and others. So thank you for your leadership. And I look
    forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you to the three
    of you for coming out and talking about such an important
    issue.
        Admiral, I'd like to start with you to just kind of talk
    through--you talked about the PRC's actions in terms of
    mobilizing that sense of national power--not just military but
    that also includes so many other tools, whether that be
    political, information, economic. So I guess I just want to
    make sure I understand. You know, when it comes to the work
    that the United States is doing, as well as what Taiwan is
    doing, is it correct that we need to make sure we're not
    focusing too narrowly just on the military deterrence side?
    That's certainly critically important, but so many of the other
    issues need to be addressed with an equal level of importance.
    Is that a good assumption to start with?
        Admiral Studeman. Senator, that is exactly right. Look, we
    need to understand the playing field, or the battlefield that
    we're on. This is about global influence over time, where China
    is trying to exert itself and create leverage, and essentially
    begin to expand its influence at the expense of our and our
    friends' influence, and the rest of the Western rules-based
    system, to be able to transform it to meet their preferences.
    They're not going to try to trash all elements. They can co-opt
    many of those. But the Chinese are taking over inside
    international institutions. Obviously, you know about the Belt
    and Road, extending their influence in a way where we need to
    compete.
        And you can't compete if you don't have healthy, robust
    instruments of national power that are ready to work together
    to orchestrate the kinds of things that we're going to need to
    do to deal with that reality that's happening around the world,
    not just here at home. And so in my humble opinion, we need to
    not euthanize major critical elements of our government that
    support what we're talking about. We also need to understand
    that we have to be
    sophisticated in our approach. We actually have to do trust-
    generating things with our international partners. We need to
    think about what true smart power really is. Like Joe Nye would
    say, it's the soft, it's the sharp, and it's the hard. It's not
    just the hard or the sharp all the time. That would not be
    smart power.
        The Chinese are using smart power cleverly in many places
    around the world constantly, to gradually, steadily turn the
    tide against the United States and supplant us there. And we
    need to be wise to this. And we also need to use our
    instruments wisely. So I do think some of the changes that are
    occurring in government are very dangerous. To me it's like
    Superman choosing to swallow kryptonite at exactly the wrong
    time.
        Senator Kim. Yes. And look, beyond just our own tools--and
    I say this as someone who used to work at the State Department,
    and engage in a lot of these different efforts--but would I be
    correct as well in trying to make sure that we're
    conceptualizing a strategic advantage of ours being our
    capacity to be able to build international coalitions? And
    especially when you go in, and competing, and having the
    challenges against a competitor which has as large a population
    and an economy and resources as China, am I correct in thinking
    that, you know, being able to build international coalitions,
    that that is not just good to have, nice to have, but is a
    necessary component if we were to try to truly compete and be
    able to truly protect people not just in Taiwan but around the
    world?
        Admiral Studeman. I believe that our work with all
    countries around the world--allies, partners--all of it is
    going to be very important and that we have to be mindful of
    their respective interests. We need to do things that build
    trust, not reduce it. You know, credibility isn't divisible.
    Either you have it or you don't. And the same may be true of
    trust. And so instead of breaching it, we need to do more to
    build it. We're going to have to earn it. We're going to have
    to earn the moral high ground here in the international system.
    And I worry about where brand America is heading, given the
    trends.
        Senator Kim. Yes, the word you use there, credibility--I
    think that's really important. I would also use the word
    ``reliability,'' in terms of whether or not we are there for
    our allies and our partners. And that they feel like they can
    trust us, because certainly that is something that is so
    critical.
        Mr. Mattis, I want to turn to you. I mean, what we see so
    much in Taiwan, and we've heard it in the briefing as well as
    more broadly, is that often it's a testing ground for the
    united front and for political warfare tactics. So I guess I
    just want to hear from you a little more. What are the most
    concerning developments in this space? And what tactics could
    Beijing use in other democracies?
        Mr. Mattis. I tend to disagree with people who call Taiwan
    a testing ground. I think of it more as the place where the CCP
    has the least restrictions and the least sort of ethical
    restraints on anything that it does, because its political
    objective of dissolving the ROC, of annexing Taiwan, means that
    it has no view of restraint. It's not competing for influence
    in some country with the United States, where it's not about
    effecting this type of decision or one thing. It is actually
    about the destruction of Taiwan as a society, as a political
    entity, and to integrate it.
        Senator Kim. I respect your thought there. I was just
    trying to clarify some of what I'm seeing taking place in
    Taiwan. I feel like I saw some initial precursors to that in
    Hong Kong, for instance, and how the PRC repressed voices on
    that front. And you're seeing it now mobilized and expanded in
    Taiwan. And I'm just trying to think through--you know, how is
    that continuing to grow, and what is it that we can do to try
    to be concerned about that and address it?
        Mr. Mattis. Some of the things that are fundamental to this
    are sort of a widespread effort to go after people who have any
    sort of platform and influence within a broader population,
    because a Taiwanese voice is much better than a Chinese voice
    to try to put pressure on or to affect the cognition, the
    psychology of the Taiwanese. The second is the very focused
    effort of going after local-level politicians, local-level
    associations, local businesses, because the political structure
    in Taiwan is far less centralized. The Kuomintang used to be a
    Leninist party, and it had that kind of structure. And that
    central part has fallen away. And the DPP grew up out of pro-
    democracy activists, and so it has a decentralized way of doing
    things.
        And therefore, the ability to focus on local levels in
    Taiwan and to really try to cultivate the next generation of
    politicians and push them into office and provide the financial
    resources through business opportunities, is particularly
    disconcerting because it's intense, it's difficult to spot, and
    if you want to start shaping it, you're having to say, This
    kind of interaction with the PRC is okay, this kind is not. And
    it gets very uncomfortable for democracies to make these kinds
    of political judgment calls. And therefore, it also requires
    you having a political discussion, the ability of a president
    or legislature to mobilize people around these questions for
    national security and protection.
        The third area that I find particularly disconcerting--I
    had mentioned this when you stepped away--is the effort to
    understand the real-time movements of the president of Taiwan
    and other leaders--this focused effort on the military police
    command, trying to find bodyguards, trying to find anyone who
    could be in this position, to demonstrate awareness of where
    the president is, because if you're thinking about how to
    paralyze a political system in a moment of crisis, going after
    the leaders is a key way of doing this.
        Chair Sullivan. Thank you.
        Congressman Nunn.
        Representative Nunn. Well, thank you to the Commission.
    Thank you very much to both of our chairs here. I think this is
    a great opportunity to have not only a bipartisan conversation
    but a bicameral approach. Admiral, you highlighted the need for
    not only a whole-of-government, but really a whole-of-nation
    response to China on this. So I'll offer you one, as a fellow
    intelligence officer here. In 2020 it started with a pineapple.
    I was working a counter-influence operation. And we saw in
    rural Taiwan that a group, unbeknownst to many of us, started
    going after pineapple farmers. And slowly, by prefecture after
    prefecture, they were able to identify that the pineapple
    farmer was going to be a linchpin in the 2020 election. They
    directly messaged them. And, unbeknownst to us at the time, 98
    percent of pineapple exports ended up in mainland China.
        The ability to influence a pineapple farmer, and I'm a guy
    from Iowa who knows the commodities market very well, meant
    that they were going to be influenced when they went to that
    ballot box. Down ballot, the Chinese ability to micro-target
    individuals within the voting population within central Taiwan
    certainly had an outcome in what both the DPP and the KMT, the
    mainland China party, saw in their local elections. This was
    strategic. It was effective. And without a shot fired, they
    were able to change the course of an election, arguably through
    legal means.
        This is what George Kennan identified as ``political
    warfare.'' I'll be very specific here: ``The employment of all
    the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its
    national objective.'' I want to turn to you, Admiral. You
    worked in national intelligence in a number of ways, including
    your time in the INDOPACOM theater here. When we look at China,
    do you believe China has the ability to effectively deploy,
    even through its Mandarin-based language learning models--the
    ability to launch influence operations against actors in Taiwan
    today?
        Admiral Studeman. It's not a question of ``could they.''
    They are doing it all the time.
        Representative Nunn. I agree. Do you believe they could go
    the next step and cross that great Pacific, and start doing
    influence operations in the United States today?
        Admiral Studeman. They don't need to cross the Pacific.
    They're already here. And they're already doing it.
        Representative Nunn. I agree. Do you believe that the types
    of things that we're seeing them orchestrate in Asia today,
    particularly election manipulation, could be executed here in
    the United States today?
        Admiral Studeman. It's already happened, and it will happen
    again in the future.
        Representative Nunn. This is very concerning. I think this
    needs to be at the forefront of where we are operating as a
    Commission. To be able to identify not only what the Chinese
    are doing to their neighbors but what they're doing right here
    in the United States. You know, Mr. Mattis, you and I spent
    some time in counter-
    intelligence at the Agency together. And I think we've seen
    firsthand the threat that's posed by this. When I look at the
    United States today, I believe we need a whole-of-nation
    approach, as the Admiral highlighted. But what I see coming out
    of Beijing right now is a nationalized whole-of-information
    operation, where they're using everything from industry to
    export controls and cyber campaigns in this very targeted
    political warfare.
        Are we in a position right now where we can counter this
    type of operation here in the United States? And do we even
    have insight into it? It was mentioned earlier, understanding
    Mandarin, the only way we found out about the pineapple farms
    was using large language models to break down, after the fact,
    the messaging coming from mainland China into Taiwan. It's
    happening, as the Admiral highlighted, right in front of us. I
    don't even know if we're aware of it, and in a position to be
    able to counter it. I'd like your thoughts.
        Mr. Mattis. I think this is why I highlighted at the very
    beginning of my testimony that we may understand that there's a
    United Front Work Department, usually referencing the one for
    the Central Committee, but there are provincial United Front
    Work Departments. There are local United Front Work
    Departments. There is a whole Chinese People's Political
    Consultative Conference system that has roughly 715,000
    members, which is something that you could roughly describe as
    like a militia system, if you will, or a reserve system for the
    united front, that's mobilizing businesspeople, retired
    officials, actually, one branch of the Kuomintang that split
    off. And a whole range of other outside actors that are outside
    of the party.
        There's also a United Front Work Department, by the way,
    in, say, the China Academy of Sciences. It's also in certain
    companies. It's sometimes even in Western companies that have
    full-fledged Party committees. And as a result, you see
    something that is an entire system that is operating. And it's
    worth noting that the guidance that has been given to the
    united front by Zhou Enlai, and has continued to be quoted
    these days, begins with, Understand the situation, have a firm
    grasp of policy, and arrange personnel, and that that's the
    prerequisite for acting.
        The reason this is effective and why it's so difficult to
    deal with is that the Party is making very clear what its
    objectives are. You know, This is what our policies are. And
    then saying to all of these hundreds of thousands of people, Go
    do what you can to push that forward. And that's why it's such
    a difficult challenge, because in a military context the united
    front system is operating on mission orders, if you will. You
    know, We've equipped you for brilliance in the basics. We've
    given you the guidance. Now, go do it. And it becomes a
    question of how you isolate the Uyghur cause. How do you
    isolate the Taiwanese? How do you steal technology? How do you
    help us recruit intelligence sources?
        It is a capability, in a sense--or, if you're thinking of
    ends, ways, and means, united front could probably be described
    as a way of approaching politics and influence and creating
    this mobilizational capability that can be there. And that
    means it can be used for propaganda, but it can also be used
    for political action. And that's what makes it so difficult to
    deal with. Because it's not a question of whether it's legal or
    illegal. The Party doesn't care about that. It cares about its
    objectives and creating this ability to leverage, to push this
    forward.
        Representative Nunn. I very much agree.
        Ms. Wong, in the time that I have remaining, I want you to
    know we're leading a bipartisan CODEL to Taiwan later this
    year. The intent here is not only to stand with our allies but
    also to do some fact finding, some discovery. I think both
    those in the United States, but also, I would say, in Taiwan,
    who've been on the front line of this for quite some time, are
    coming up with some really innovative ways of responding to
    this type of Chinese pressure campaign, political warfare, to
    be very specific. Do you have any early indications that we're
    able to find some kind of defense, some kind of countermeasure
    here, to be able to put into this space not only to help the
    United States, but, as was noted, to be able to stand with our
    allies in pushing back against the false narratives coming out
    of Beijing intending to manipulate, conscript, and coerce
    allies in the region into falling into Beijing's sphere
    further?
        Ms. Wong. I absolutely agree that it's important for the
    U.S. to stand by Taiwan and to coordinate capacities and
    resources to be able to combat authoritarian influence efforts.
    I think the United States probably has some learning it could
    do from Taiwan, which has been dealing with these issues for a
    long time. And I think it's important for the United States
    also to sort of continue its global commitment to combating
    foreign disinformation, to sort of make sure that alternative
    messaging from the United States and its allies and partners
    gets out there and that it doesn't leave a gap or a void for
    the CCP and its narratives to take root, especially in places
    where there's relatively little knowledge of Taiwan and the
    complexities of these issues.
        Representative Nunn. Thank you.
        I'd just like to close by saying, Admiral, you've seen this
    firsthand. I could not agree with you more. I'd like to see a
    bipartisan voice at the White House, in an ideal world--I don't
    know that that's always the case. But certainly a National
    Security Council that can help orchestrate not only all of our
    instruments of government power but also all of our instruments
    of national power. And if my eighteen-year-old daughter can be
    an influencer and do quite well in her ability to encourage
    young people in a certain way, we as the United States should
    be a force for good in the world and shine light on bad actors,
    while also having the opportunity to project what's great about
    democracies like Taiwan, like the United States. Thank you very
    much for your service.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield my time.
        Chair Sullivan. Congressman Nunn, we'll work with you--
    before you head over to Taiwan--on my Stand with Taiwan Act.
    It's got a very strong bipartisan group of Senators over here.
    And it's, I think, part of what you're talking about right now.
    We want to make sure it's got strong bipartisan support in the
    House, too. Great.
        Senator Merkley.
        Senator Merkley. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you all for your testimony.
        I'm going to start, Admiral Studeman, with your phrase
    regarding the silent invasion of the United States. Freedom
    House has documented over 1,200 incidents of repression by
    China since 2014. We've had previous testimony of transnational
    repression here in the United States, ranging from somebody
    walking up to a Chinese member of the diaspora and saying, We
    know who you are, we know where you live . . . to direct
    threats against their family members back in China. Do we have
    a sense in tracking the increase over the last decade, of where
    we were a decade ago, in terms of the number of incidents, the
    presence of China engaging in these types of acts of
    intimidation, affecting freedom of assembly, affecting freedom
    of speech here in the United States? How does 2015 compare to
    2025, if you will?
        Admiral Studeman. I don't have the statistics on that. I'm
    sure somebody does. Maybe my fellow panelists have some data.
    But one can essentially say that there is pressure to continue
    to do more around the world, not just here, as part of the
    political direction from Beijing to deal with any anti-China
    voices that exist anywhere. I think if you go back
    historically, I think I recall in 1984 there was an
    assassination of a Taiwan person--done by, I think, some
    criminal gang that was working as a proxy for the PRC. Look,
    the idea of pressure in all forms, up to killing, including
    rendering in a variety of different ways, all that stuff has
    happened on our soil. And we need to understand that that's
    sort of the brutal fact of our existence--that we're going to
    have to confront these dangers and figure out a way to protect
    those who are here that might face those kinds of approaches by
    the CCP and their proxies.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you.
        And Mr. Mattis, thank you for your work on this Commission
    and your engagement in this. It has been my impression that we
    are probably only seeing the tip of the iceberg, that most
    people who are affected through acts of transnational
    repression here in the United States don't report it. There's
    not a comfortable way to do so. And one of the things that I've
    advocated for is for us to create a better pathway and better
    information on how folks can report such incidents, so we can
    better track over time what China is doing. And if we aren't
    understanding what they're doing, it's hard for us to craft
    ways to deter it or respond to it. What's your sense of that
    last decade, in terms of the increase in China's activity here
    in the United States?
        Mr. Mattis. My sense is not necessarily about the number of
    incidents, because that's almost impossible to track. It is,
    let's say, what they are willing to do on U.S. territory, or in
    foreign countries, that has steadily ramped up. So it might
    have been--let's call it a semi-polite notice--We know who you
    are type of thing, ramping up to physical altercations. You
    know, an example that took place in the U.K. was they went
    after someone from Hong Kong. They flew in at a private
    airfield. They intended to fly out with her. And it was
    disrupted, and they were caught on camera.
        But that kind of direct rendering, or that kind of
    pressure, is something that you can know has happened in the
    United States. Maybe not in quite that way, but certainly the
    kind of direct pressure of--``You will go to Beijing and be
    there in the next 48 hours, or else.'' So those kinds of things
    have gone from relatively minor, you know, in a criminal sense
    you might call it a misdemeanor, up to things that are actual
    felonies.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you.
        Ms. Wong, one thing that caught my attention in your
    testimony, in a paragraph where you're talking about how
    transnational repression activities consist of multipronged
    community and political mobilization. You mentioned the broader
    and public discourse on Taiwan through the positioning of pro-
    Beijing individuals as political aides. Are you referring to
    that happening here in the United States? Or are you referring
    to that happening in Taiwan?
        Ms. Wong. I was referring to that happening in the United
    States, as we see in the recent arrest of Linda Sun, who is a
    former aide to the New York governor. You know, she positioned
    herself as a community liaison but had very close links to
    united front and the CCP. So they're claiming to speak on
    behalf of the Asian American and Chinese American community but
    actually propagating Chinese government viewpoints and
    positions and by extension, circumscribing the New York
    governor or others that are politicians whom they were aides
    to, and shaping their views on what is permissible to say or
    not to say, on Taiwan, and Xinjiang, and other cases.
        Senator Merkley. Great. I'd like to have the staff of the
    Commission follow up with you on the details of that. And your
    second half of that sentence was ``operating as a political
    machine to get pro-Beijing candidates elected to office.'' And
    this is what we're talking about, election influence in the
    U.S.--we really want to understand the scope of that much more
    broadly.
        The last question I want to pose, because my time is
    expiring, is--and that's a question I've posed during every one
    of these gatherings--what is an effective strategy to respond?
    One thing that I have pressed for is for the FBI to have a
    hotline with Chinese-speaking individuals and high security, so
    people feel comfortable reporting incidents of transnational
    repression when they occur. The FBI has been very reluctant to
    have any sort of dedicated effort in that regard.
        A second is, are there things that should trigger specific
    responses in terms of, for example, trade sanctions? And the
    Chairman has mentioned that in the context of military
    aggression, but are there things, in terms of transnational
    repression, that should trigger responses? If there's a
    documented incident of the Chinese government engaging in some
    of these escalated events that we're starting to hear about,
    does that increase their tariff on products coming into the
    U.S.? What other leverage tools are there for us to really
    dramatize the unacceptability of China interfering in our
    freedom of speech and our freedom of assembly? Whoever would
    like to take a stab at that.
        Admiral Studeman. If you have a persistent, comprehensive,
    never-ending threat, then you need to deal with it with
    persistence, with comprehensive strategies that go up and down
    the chain. So it's both the depth and the breadth. This, to me,
    is one of the only ways to approach that kind of wicked problem
    that's being presented to us. And so we talked about education
    as a starting point. To me, this is something that has to be
    part of a continuing conversation with the country. But I do
    think that there are a variety of--a family of things that
    we're going to have to do in concert with one another, because
    I don't think you're going to find a silver bullet on this.
        But it is worth debating and worth figuring out, you know,
    what actually is more effective. And I think we should listen
    to Taiwan, which has a lot of experience in these matters, and
    some of the techniques that they've been using, as well as
    others who have faced this kind of action from China. So
    instead of figuring it out on our own, we should do a listening
    campaign. And I believe we ought to have the kind of dialog
    that allows us to speak internationally about Chinese political
    warfare in a more regularized way, with representatives from a
    variety of different governments. To me, that gets to exposure
    of what they're doing, and it also gets the best practices that
    people are using that may be more effective in countering what
    we're talking about.
        Senator Merkley. I think you mentioned--I'm over time, but
    I think you mentioned that Australia has developed some
    interesting responses. I'd like to learn more about that. Only
    with the Chair's permission will I invite continued response. I
    would love to hear what you have to say, depends on----
        Mr. Mattis. Senator Merkley, first, I think we have to
    recognize that the United States is a federal government of 50
    sovereign states that have their own law enforcement. And that
    you have your own localities that have resources. And that if
    you want to be effective in responding, it means that you're
    going to have to devote resources and training to state's
    attorneys' offices, district attorneys' offices, right? We know
    that certain kinds of criminal investigations require certain
    kinds of expertise on the part of both prosecutors and police.
        A second is that we have to have the political willingness
    to arrest people when there are problems. There are all sorts
    of examples that you can go through where Chinese government
    officials have been allowed to come to the United States who
    have committed acts of intimidation or coercion. And they've
    been allowed to leave completely unscathed. Now, at the very
    least, we have to be careful with this because we're not going
    to hostage-take, the way that the PRC does. But I think
    demonstrating that we are going to follow our own rule of law
    and we're not going to allow these kinds of exceptions to
    continue is a starting point for leverage and pressure on the
    PRC.
        I think you were exactly on the right track by suggesting
    things that are not like for like, because we know that Beijing
    complains about us linking issues together, like trade and
    human rights. But we know that they do this all the time. And
    if we're simply responding symmetrically, we're making it too
    easy--too predictable. We're putting us into a position where
    we would be saying, Well, actually, we're just going to take
    hostages, when in fact there are other things that we should be
    doing--there are vulnerabilities that the PRC has and we should
    be putting pressure on those places.
        And those issues at state government levels--I think
    Newsweek identified 24 state government officials in New York.
    The researcher who did that work is now working for Jamestown.
    But if you go around the country you can find similar issues in
    almost every state. And unfortunately, in the state that I used
    to live in, and that you represent, there have been issues that
    are there among state government officials, state legislatures,
    because of the targeting.
        This is the point--it's not enough to have a Federal
    Government response. It is actually something where you have to
    find ways, as we've done in many other criminal areas--whether
    it's fraud, whether it's sexual violence--you actually have to
    have police and prosecutors that understand this to be
    accessible and to be a part of the communities that can be
    reported to.
        Senator Merkley. Thank you.
        Chair Sullivan. Thank you, Senator Merkley.
        I'm going to ask another round, if I can ask the witnesses
    to be succinct. I'm going to go vote here--another round of
    voting, and then Chairman Smith is going to wrap this up. I'll
    have to leave to go vote. But I want to get a commitment from
    the three of you, as the record is going to be open for a
    couple weeks after this hearing, to maybe get--and I know I was
    reading, Admiral, your written testimony is great--some really
    specific examples of Chinese actions on our soil intimidating
    American citizens, or Taiwanese, or Chinese citizens on our
    soil. I think Americans really need to know that. If you guys
    can provide--like, Admiral, the police stations in New York--
    what was that? That was kind of crazy. I mean, what the hell
    was that?
        Admiral Studeman. Yes, Senator, those were fronts to be
    able to keep watch on the Chinese diaspora, and be able to----
        Chair Sullivan. Like, physical buildings of Chinese
    communist officials in New York keeping track of American
    citizens?
        Admiral Studeman. That's right.
        Chair Sullivan. You've got to be kidding me.
        Admiral Studeman [continuing]. To apply pressure points on
    Chinese to behave, and those who maybe were considered too
    oppositional, to be able to deal with those.
        Chair Sullivan. Well, those kinds of things, if we can get
    more specifics. If the average American knew about that--again,
    Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter. You know, we're a free
    country, and we should not have the gosh darn Chinese Communist
    Party trying to intimidate Americans on our soil. No way.
        Let me give you another example. It's a bill I had with
    Senator Warren, to give you a sense of the bipartisan nature of
    this. Last year, when Senator Merkley was talking about
    effective strategy, our bill said if there's evidence of the
    Chinese Communist Party trying to manipulate American
    elections--again, they would never stand for elections; they're
    going to manipulate our democracy--then our intel agencies--you
    know a lot about this, Admiral--will do everything we can to
    get out all the information we can, break down the Chinese
    firewall, which we probably can do, on how corrupt all the
    leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is. And let the
    Chinese people know about that.
        I mean, I think Xi Jinping's sister is a billionaire. Hmm,
    how'd that happen? So let the Chinese--you want to mess with
    our democracy? Here you go. What do you think about that? We
    need to go on offense here. I mean, these guys are coming after
    our democracy. And we've got the goods on them. We can let
    people in China know just how corrupt their leaders are. What
    do you think about something like that? That was a bill that
    Senator Warren and I had, very bipartisan. You know, she and I
    represent different wings of our parties--or we kind of do. But
    what do you think of something like that? A little bit of
    offense here. Why are we the punching bag?
        Admiral Studeman. Senator, I agree with your sentiments on
    all this, and the passion. And I wish more people felt it and
    were able to be empowered to get after it. We were able to set
    up, in the intelligence community, a Foreign Malign Influence
    Center. It began with Russian election interference. It needs
    to grow and expand.
        Chair Sullivan. Yes. Same thing. Putin's one of the richest
    guys in the world. Let the Russian people know that. How'd he
    get that way? He stole it from his people. You think that would
    be helpful, though?
        Admiral Studeman. I think that the Foreign Malign Influence
    Center that is witting to all levels of classification and
    knows what we should know about what's happening should compile
    it. They should synthesize. They should analyze it. And they
    should be reporting on it. And not just within classified
    circles. I believe we need to be better at selective disclosure
    of classified cases that you're talking about, while still
    protecting sources and methods, which we can do. We need to get
    this stuff exposed so that more people are aware.
        Chair Sullivan. By the way, we made this code. This
    wouldn't be disinformation. We're just getting out the truth.
    If all these Chinese Communist Party leaders are all
    multimillionaires and billionaires, where'd they get that? They
    stole it from their people. Putin, he's one of the richest guys
    in the world. How'd he get that? He stole it from his people.
    That's not a lie. That's not misinformation. That's just
    getting the facts out. I think we need to do a much better job
    of going on offense here, particularly when we're being
    attacked.
        Let me ask one final question. And Admiral, I'm going to
    ask you, because you know a lot about the history. It's just
    astounding to me how well treated--it's kind of the Hollywood
    issue. I try to read a lot about Chinese history. And one thing
    that comes back to me all the time is how Mao Zedong was
    literally responsible for policies that killed, I don't know,
    you make the estimate, 50, 60, 70 million people, of his
    citizens. Killed them. And had some of the most bizarre
    policies such as the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural
    Revolution; these were just unmitigated disasters.
        And yet you have Xi Jinping modeling everything he does on
    Mao Zedong. That would be like a German chancellor modeling
    everything they do on Hitler. Why do you think that never comes
    out? Why do you think our media, our history--what's with this
    kid glove treatment with Mao Zedong's legacy? I mean, he killed
    more Chinese than any other foreign power probably ever. And
    yet he's still lauded, his portrait's up in the middle of
    Beijing. What do you think we can do with that, if anything?
        Admiral Studeman. I agree that we need to highlight Chinese
    history and to be able to describe exactly what the long arc of
    the CCP has really been for the Chinese people, and those
    mistakes that could be made again given that system but now on
    a global scale.
        Chair Sullivan. Let me ask one other point that you'll know
    a lot about. We always talk about Taiwan in terms of China's
    territorial aggression. But you may have seen this New York
    Times article--very good--they recently had a very deep dive
    intel report from the Russian KGB, or whatever they call
    themselves now. And it was a whole document on how the Russian
    intel services are worried that China is going to start trying
    to get back land that Russia took from them in the 19th
    century. You know, China used to have territorial domination of
    the Korean Peninsula. Do you think that, as the Chinese
    Communist Party gets stronger, that they're going to view their
    territorial ambitions not just with regard to Taiwan, which we
    know is obvious, but with regard to Russia, where they share a
    huge border? With regard to Vietnam, with regard to Korea, with
    regard to the whole nine-dash line and the South China Sea?
        Who's safe in Asia if the Communist Party of China looks at
    its history saying, We owned that once, we owned this area
    once, we owned part of Korea once, we owned part of Russia
    once? Where is their limiting principle? Because the Russians
    clearly--I know we have Xi Jinping and Putin always hanging out
    together. But the Russian intel services are thinking, We need
    to start protecting Russian territory because China is coming
    for us next. You think that helps us, to get that word out that
    they're so aggressive they're going to be marching on all their
    neighbors--not just Taiwan--here soon?
        Admiral Studeman. I think that China has been expanding its
    strategic spaces. It considers these to be buffers or areas of
    influence that they've long held, you know, rights to be able
    to influence, just like we might have a Monroe Doctrine here in
    the United States. At the same time, if you take a look 360
    degrees along every border area of China, if you go to Ladakh,
    or Sikkim, or Bhutan, or Nepal, or Arunachal Pradesh, it's not
    just the South China Sea, it's not just increased pressure in
    Southeast Asia, or Taiwan, East China Sea. This is a full 360-
    degree issue----
        Chair Sullivan. Where they're pushing.
        Admiral Studeman [continuing]. Where they are pushing where
    they can, very opportunistic here, and trying to do so slowly,
    in a creeping fashion. But this is the nature of the CCP--
    expand and control to protect, ultimately, their regime and
    themselves.
        Chair Sullivan. Great. Thank you very much. And I
    appreciate, again, the witnesses. Great job, Mr. Chairman. This
    is great work that we're all going to be doing in a bipartisan,
    bicameral way. If you have time, can you get us some specifics
    about acts on American soil, against Americans? I think the
    American people really would want to know about that. And some
    of the actions we need to take to say, You're coming to mess
    with us? All right. We're a big country. We've got our own
    methods to make this very painful for you. I think we need to
    do a little bit more on offense. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Co-chair Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
    leadership and for an excellent hearing.
        Let me just ask a couple final questions before we close.
    You know, in March 2024, we all recall that Hsiao Bi-khim, who
    was then vice president-elect, had an incident where in the
    Czech Republic there was an attempt to foment a car accident,
    which is something that happens so often here--Wei Jingsheng,
    so many others have had it. But in this case it was obviously
    Taiwan-
    related, and the Czech intel community mitigated that threat.
    But my question, first question, is how much coordination do we
    have with other countries on the threat to the diaspora and to
    others, especially now, with Taiwan, with our allies?
        I remember when Liu Xiaobo got the Nobel Peace Prize. I led
    the effort in Congress to give three people in China--Chen
    Guangcheng, Gao Xingjian, Liu Xiaobo--to award them the Peace
    Prize. We had multiple signers. Liu Xiaobo got it, the first
    Chinese person ever to get it. They wouldn't allow him to go,
    as we all know. They kept him in prison. They wouldn't allow
    his wife to go. He eventually died of cancer when they wouldn't
    even give him assistance in terms of medical aid. But my big
    takeaway from talking to lawmakers who were there, and I know a
    lot of them in Europe, was the worry about retaliation by the
    Chinese Communist Party for having awarded him that very
    prestigious award.
        I was kind of shocked. We should be lauding him and saying,
    Here's the model for China. He wanted slow reform. He was part
    of the Charter 08 effort, as we all remember. Just a tremendous
    man. And yet there was almost an apologetic view being taken.
    Well, you know, we've got to contain this, otherwise we'll have
    an economic downside. And I heard it from a lot of my
    colleagues because I have chaired the OSCE Parliamentary
    Assembly here for decades--I'm now the special rep for
    trafficking.
        But I heard it. I had friends there. They told me that. I
    won't name names, it was off the record, but it was like a
    consistent concern. In other words, the Chinese Communist Party
    is doing a good job in intimidating even governments who aren't
    standing firm against them. So how well do we coordinate with
    them? Is there a country, or countries that you would put at
    the top--the U.K. or others--that are doing a good job in
    standing with Taiwan? I know we are, but I don't think we do
    enough either, no matter who's in the White House. But we need
    to do more.
        Second, what role, in your view, does higher education play
    in human rights and democracy in Taiwan here in this country? I
    had a series of hearings on Confucius Centers. I had the
    chancellor of NYU come and testify at one of my hearings and
    took him to task. Very nice guy, very civil. I even invited
    myself, and he accommodated that, to go to the Beijing campus
    of NYU to give a human rights speech. And I did it. And he was
    very good to allow that to happen. But I said, you know, when
    they buy your entire campus and they kind of pick who comes and
    gets the imprimatur of a prestigious organization like NYU, how
    does that affect your teaching? You know, can anyone talk about
    the Dalai Lama here? Can anybody talk about human rights abuse?
    Can anybody talk about Taiwan?
        So my question is, how well or poorly are our universities
    doing? And Confucius Centers, in my opinion, were one of the
    worst things--soft power, Chinese Communist Party. There were
    so many hearings on it. I couldn't believe it. There were
    hearings over here on the Senate side as well, which were
    great. And it was all to say, stop it. You know, they're
    watching the diaspora. They're delivering a message that is
    precooked in Beijing as to what they should say. And they're
    also keeping a sharp eye on the students that are visiting
    here. So how are they doing? And on the international side, are
    we coordinating with these other nations, the State Department?
    You know, the former chairman here was Marco Rubio. Nobody
    knows China like he does. He's got a lot on his plate lately--
    but it would be a great thing for us to better coordinate, if
    we're not already, with our allies.
        Peter.
        Mr. Mattis. The U.S. Government can speak for itself in
    many respects. What I would highlight are a couple of useful
    features about this. The first is the legislative discussions,
    the inter-
    parliamentary conversations. And it got sort of a kick-up with
    the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, founded in June
    2020. And that's brought together dozens of countries, dozens
    of legislatures, and an expert network associated with it, to
    bring information and briefings to, I think it's roughly 40
    countries, give or take. And so that's one way in which you
    have democracies sharing. The summit for IPAC last year was
    hosted in Taiwan, in Taipei. I believe one of the staff
    directors was at that event.
        And I would point out--you, yourself, chaired a hearing on
    this with the CECC in December 2017--one of the very, very
    first to draw attention to these issues. So this parliamentary
    piece of it is key. And it is really the democratic countries
    around the world. And it's not just European. It's not just
    North America. You have them in Asia and Africa, Latin America,
    where you find people trying to step up and share.
        The second is that in the NGO network that was there, of
    researchers, of analysts--I can tell you from my own experience
    that 12, 13 years ago, there were about five of us worldwide.
    That's not what it looks like today. There are dozens. How do
    we know about the overseas police stations in New York, in
    Texas, some of the other places where these centers were?
    Because of a European NGO that chose to research and dig into
    this. And we're all friends. We all talk. And it's gone from
    just a handful, you know, a workshop, to you can't fit them
    all, even in, say, the Cannon building, you know, the Speaker
    Pelosi Hearing Room.
        And if you're going to pick out some specific countries
    that have really been above and beyond what's there, I think
    one of the first ones is the Czech Republic, simply because
    they have an intellectual tradition of understanding communism,
    and they haven't forgotten. They have an intuitive grasp of
    what these problems are, and they've sort of naturally built
    connections with Taiwan that said, This is important; we
    understand this. I think Lithuania in the Baltics is another
    one that has recognized the value that's there. Some of the
    other NATO countries on the eastern flank have found it useful,
    for example, to talk with the Taiwanese about runway repair,
    because there's an issue there.
        But I don't think you have a really strong tier of a lot of
    countries that have really pushed really hard. And it goes kind
    of in line with different governments. Australia has played a
    critical role in terms of both its government and its civil
    society in bringing awareness and sharing these issues. But
    again, I think governments have been a little more
    inconsistent. But you've seen this body of researchers, this
    body of journalists that are now prepared to report on and
    discuss this in a way that just wasn't possible, even when you
    held that first hearing in 2017.
        Ms. Wong. Just a quick response to your question about the
    role of higher education. I think in terms of university
    responses you can separate it between the response of the
    administration versus responses of faculty. And I know my
    colleagues in the China field who are aware of these issues of
    transnational repression and the complexities and the
    implications of freedom of speech--I think individually faculty
    have attempted to address these issues and create a safe space
    for Chinese students on campus, and to sort of ensure that
    there is still academic freedom around Taiwan, and Xinjiang,
    and other issues.
        I think in many university administrations in the United
    States and elsewhere, there is a lot of financial concern due
    to reliance on Chinese students for revenue, or getting
    donations, and research institutes funded by donors with links
    to the CCP. And I think that has impaired a more systematic
    knowledge-sharing coordination to address these issues of
    academic freedom, freedom of speech, and transnational
    repression on campuses. So I think there definitely needs to be
    more done at the administration level to address these issues.
        Admiral Studeman. I agree with my fellow panelists. I think
    they covered both of those topics well.
        Co-chair Smith. Okay. I think we need to do more to--just
    like we try to hold corporate America to account, and this
    Commission has done yeoman's work on that, to continue the work
    with our academics. I'll never forget, in my first term here,
    1982, a man broke a story who was going for his doctorate at
    Stanford. He broke the news about the one-child-per-couple
    policy and the heavy reliance on forced abortion to achieve it.
    And a couple years later, I offered amendments on the floor,
    that passed, to defund those organizations that were enabling
    that. He lost his Stanford credentials. And, as a matter of
    fact, the Wall Street Journal did a piece called ``Stanford
    Morality'' and got behind this researcher who broke that story.
    ``60 Minutes'' did a piece on it. ``Nova'' did a piece on it.
    And Stanford didn't see clear. They said, Oh, you're going to
    hurt our access. So we need to continue, I think, that positive
    pressure on our higher education. And that was 40-plus years
    ago, and unfortunately I think it continues to this day.
        I thank you very much, all of you, for your testimony, for
    your leadership. And I ask unanimous consent that the record be
    kept open for seven business days to allow members to submit
    additional written questions for the witnesses, and for the
    witnesses to revise and extend their remarks. No objection, so
    ordered. I want to thank all of today's witnesses for your time
    and, above all, for your wisdom. Hearing's adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:17 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]

    ?

    =======================================================================

                                A P P E N D I X

    =======================================================================

                              Prepared Statements

                                  ----------

                         Prepared Statement of Fan Yun

        Chair Sullivan, Co-chair Smith, and CECC members, thank you for
    having me as a witness today. I would also like to thank the U.S.
    Congress and Administration for your longstanding bipartisan support
    for Taiwan.
        Last fall, our national baseball team won the World Baseball
    Softball Confederation's Premier 12 Championship. But our players were
    not allowed to wear jerseys bearing our country's name, nor could they
    proclaim our country's name in public. After hitting a decisive three-
    run home run, our team's captain pointed to the blank space on his
    jersey where ``Taiwan'' should be, celebrating the name that cannot be
    named.
        This is the reality we live with--constantly being silenced by the
    PRC. However, enduring such political warfare has also built up our
    capacity to resist.
        As the title of this public hearing suggests, in addition to
    growing military threats and economic coercion, the PRC's political
    warfare against Taiwan has also escalated. Their tactics include
    manipulation of international laws, ``united front work'' activities,
    espionage, infiltration, and disinformation campaigns.
        In terms of lawfare, the PRC has twisted U.N. Resolution 2758 for
    political propaganda in the international arena. They not only aim to
    suppress Taiwan's participation in various international organizations
    but also seek to legitimize the use of force to annex Taiwan.
        In addition, the PRC has intensified its united front and
    infiltration efforts within Taiwan.
        According to our National Security Bureau, the number of espionage
    indictments in 2024 was four times higher than in 2021--rising from 16
    to 64. Targets include the military, the Parliament, both the ruling
    party and the opposition, and civic groups. The PRC has even recruited
    gangsters to build an armed support network all over Taiwan.
        The PRC has also established united front organizations in Taiwan
    to invite religious groups, village chiefs, and college students on
    heavily subsidized trips to China. For college students, there are
    special programs attracting young Taiwanese to study, work, or start
    businesses in China. These activities aim to integrate them into
    China's economy and eventually come to view China's politics and
    culture in a positive light.
        After last year's elections, the two major opposition parties
    formed a majority voting bloc in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan. After their
    electoral victory, the caucus leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), the
    leading opposition party, led 17 of its lawmakers, nearly one-third of
    the entire caucus, to visit China and meet Chinese officials. Shortly
    thereafter, the KMT, along with the TPP, rushed to push through a
    series of unconstitutional bills, prevented the national security legal
    amendments from proceeding to a first reading, and froze or slashed the
    national defense budget without proper justification. Many Taiwanese
    believe these actions show how pro-China forces are exploiting Taiwan's
    democratic mechanisms to undermine both its sovereignty and democracy.
        In terms of disinformation, our National Security Bureau reported
    that messages with China's influence increased from 1.3 million in 2023
    to 2.2 million in 2024, being spread through newspapers and TV
    stations, as well as social media platforms such as TikTok. According
    to think tank GTI, some media outlets have received direct instructions
    from the CCP's Taiwan Affairs Office regarding news coverage and
    editorial commentary. The PRC also funds Taiwanese influencers to
    produce content in China that aligns with its political agenda.
        What's the goal of the PRC's political warfare? First, it seeks to
    distort the world's understanding of Taiwan, specifically by framing
    cross-strait conflicts as a ``domestic issue'' to isolate Taiwan.
    Second, the PRC works to erode the Taiwanese people's confidence in the
    United States. A recent poll found that TikTok users in Taiwan are more
    likely to view China favorably, and more likely to believe that a pro-
    USA government might provoke war. This is a clear sign that the
    disinformation is influencing TikTok users, most of whom are young
    people. Third, by spreading false narratives, the PRC aims to make the
    Taiwanese either lose confidence in their government or disengage from
    politics. Potentially, these actions can ultimately lead people to lose
    the motivation and willpower to defend our democracy.
        As to ``transnational repression,'' recently the PRC released an
    ``investigation report,'' claiming that Taiwan's military conducted
    cyberattacks against China. They publicized the names of 20 Taiwanese
    military officers and threatened them with arrest warrants and judicial
    punishment. Last month, the PRC launched a first-ever large-scale
    disinformation campaign to attack a DPP legislator, Puma Shen, who was
    advocating for tightened national security legislation.
        These transnational attacks against members of the military and the
    government, including the planned car collision targeting then-VP-elect
    Hsiao in Czechia, are tactics the PRC is using to intimidate the
    Taiwanese, making clear the cost they will have to bear if they dare to
    resist China.
        How is Taiwan countering these threats? It takes cooperation
    between the government and civil society. In addition to raising the
    national defense budget to a historic high, President Lai adopted a
    ``whole-of-society Defense Resilience Strategy,'' aimed at
    strengthening the civil defense capacity. To counter the united front,
    he has proposed further national security reforms to enhance our
    resilience against China's united front and infiltration tactics.
        To tackle disinformation, all government agencies are asked to
    rapidly respond to misleading information. More importantly, many NGOs
    have created independent fact-checking websites as well as tools that
    can be embedded in apps.
        For the cognitive warfare aiming to affect the young generation,
    the Ministry of Education is developing teaching materials about
    ``Understanding China.'' It aims to teach students how to critically
    assess Chinese propaganda.
        In a highly polarized politics, the effort of the ruling government
    alone is insufficient. Luckily, Taiwan has a robust civil society with
    a strong will to defend democracy.
        I had the honor of serving as the Chief Commander of the Wild Lily
    Student Movement, calling for the democratic election of our
    parliament. Decades later, as a professor in 2014, I was even prouder
    to be part of the Sunflower Movement, witnessing the younger
    generations successfully opposing deeper economic integration with
    China. Through struggles like these, our society has built a strong
    democratic tradition.
        Even now, as I am speaking, Taiwan is in the middle of an
    unprecedented mass recall campaign launched by civic volunteer groups.
    The vote will take place this coming Saturday. Thirty-one of the KMT's
    36 elected district legislators are facing bottom-up recall, because
    many Taiwanese believe these lawmakers have forgotten that the KMT used
    to be an anti-Communist party.
        As Taiwanese, we know that our freedom did not fall from the sky.
    Generations of Taiwanese have fought and made sacrifices for our
    democracy. We are working very hard to prevent a war from happening.
    However, Taiwan alone will not be enough to deter China's aggression.
    As you must all be aware, Taiwan's security is not only critical to the
    stability of the region, but also key to the global economy. Standing
    with Taiwan, we can work together to protect our shared values,
    prosperity, and the rules-based global order.
        Thank you all for your time and support.
                                   __________

                  Prepared Statement of Michael W. Studeman,
                         Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

        Good morning Chairman Sullivan, Co-chairman Smith, and
    distinguished members of this Commission. I am Mike Studeman, a retired
    two-star admiral with 35 years of service as an intelligence officer.
    Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss PRC
    political warfare against Taiwan, how Taiwan is dealing with it, and
    what more to do about it.
        The views expressed in my testimony are my own and do not represent
    any organization I am currently or previously affiliated with as a
    retired officer or as a former active-duty member of the military.
        In terms of my background, my last four assignments before I
    retired in 2023 were Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence,
    Director of Intelligence (J2) for the Indo-Pacific Command, Director of
    Intelligence (J2) for the Southern Command, and Commander of the Joint
    Intelligence Operations Center at U.S. Cyber Command. I have a Master's
    in Asian Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey,
    California and studied Mandarin Chinese at the Defense Language
    Institute. I served in a variety of intelligence posts around the world
    and at sea dealing with a range of global geopolitical issues, but also
    developed substantial experience in China matters across many jobs over
    decades going back to the late 1990s. I'm currently a MITRE National
    Security Fellow and advisory board member of the National Bureau of
    Asian Research.

    Strategic Perspective

        I'd first offer that political warfare has deep roots in Chinese
    history, culture, and mindsets. Political warfare is about expanding
    one's political power at the expense of an opponent's. In 1948, George
    Kennan defined political warfare as the ``employment of all means at a
    nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives.''
    Given the efficacy of political warfare over millennia in China,
    Beijing will never desist from using this expression of power to
    achieve its ambitions. Many nations engage in mild forms of political
    warfare all the time, but authoritarian states dominated by a history
    of communist and Marxist-Leninist ideologies have taken political
    warfare to their Machiavellian extremes, supercharging their states to
    perfect the dark arts of manipulation and subversion. By subversion, I
    mean the DoD definition of ``actions designed to undermine the
    military, economic, psychological, or political strength or morale of a
    governing authority.'' During the Cold War, America dealt with Soviet
    political warfare that took the form of ``active measures,'' so this
    type of shadow fighting short of war is not new to the U.S. A central
    question is how we can learn from our 20th century experiences to guide
    our individual and collective responses to the 21st century
    manifestations of tyranny that are now resurging at scale and scope.
        A key macro-strategic point to make from the outset is that CCP
    political warfare is not just happening over there in Taiwan, but
    globally, including over here in America. China treats every day as a
    Super Bowl event as they attempt to win influence across the far
    reaches of the planet. Unfortunately, the American public continues to
    suffer from chronic inattention blindness to CCP efforts both outside
    and inside our lifelines, largely due to the co-option of the U.S.
    entertainment industry by the CCP and the reticence of multiple
    administrations in the White House to adequately describe the full
    extent of Chinese malign action in our homeland and beyond. Even while
    we might assist partners in pushing back against Chinese influence, we
    will need to address the reality that the CCP's political warfare
    activities have already gone a long way to psychologically anesthetize
    the American public, hush business leaders, intimidate scholars and
    academia, and create an environment of self-censorship on a wide range
    of clear and present China dangers.
        Overarchingly, we would be well served to view political warfare as
    an infinite game and wicked problem with no permanent winners or
    losers, no agreed-upon rules, a fluctuating set of players (many
    unknown), and no finish line. Political warfare does not eschew
    targeted violence, and agent provocateurs often look like ordinary,
    unassuming people who live seemingly innocuous lives among us. Infinite
    games are struggles for advantage that place a premium on flexibility
    and resilience by an expansive set of players at all levels who must
    all become adept at dealing with constant fluctuations, ambiguity, and
    dynamic contestation across multiple domains of influence. To gain the
    upper hand against adversarial ``red'' players, ``blue'' players of all
    stripes must acknowledge the brutal facts of their existence
    (understand the nature of the fight we are in, which is Cold War-like)
    and be reminded that our most evergreen advantages will stem from
    projecting a better long-range vision for the future than China,
    developing trust-centered partnerships, and committing to just causes
    that inspire others to voluntarily work together to advance the higher
    purposes of freedom, dignity, truth, peace, equality, justice, and
    self-
    determination.

    PRC Political Warfare on Taiwan

        The CCP seeks to degrade the political order in Taiwan, sow
    divisions, undermine its democratic institutions, strengthen CCP
    sympathizers and pro-unification proxies, increase Taiwan's dependence
    on the PRC, accentuate historical and cultural ties to bind the
    Taiwanese to the mainland, and ultimately weaken the will and desire of
    the Taiwan people to forestall any political takeover by Beijing.
    Taiwan continues to bear the brunt of Beijing's political warfare
    efforts, which are relentless, pervasive, and all-encompassing.
        The CCP has been engaged in a steady and robust campaign over
    decades to disintegrate resistance to unification using a combination
    of carrots and sticks, though its efforts in recent years have
    dramatically expanded as it attempts to arrest what Beijing sees as
    alarming strategic trends regarding its core sovereignty issue. Those
    include Taiwan's growing sense of self-identity (not Chinese),
    strengthening relations with the U.S., and the third straight win for
    the Democratic Progressive Party, now represented by President Lai
    Ching-te, a vocal advocate for asserting that Taiwan is already an
    independent sovereign nation.
        As with many other decisions, Xi Jinping has shown he is the chief
    engineer of his own crises. Beijing refuses to see that its prolific
    rhetoric about ``reunifying'' Taiwan, including Xi's statements about
    not leaving the Taiwan problem for future generations and directing the
    PLA to be ready to take Taiwan by 2027, combined with its actions to
    rapidly modernize its military and conduct Taiwan invasion exercises
    and blockade rehearsals, created the catalyzing events that
    fundamentally changed the status quo over Taiwan. CCP choices drove
    Taipei to self-strengthen and seek outside help to ward off CCP-
    initiated threats. Regardless, Beijing is now using even sharper power
    pressure tactics that continue to increase in frequency, diversity,
    complexity, and intensity, exacting significant (punitive) costs on
    Taiwan and de-
    stabilizing the Western Pacific.
        China's political stratagems and cognitive warfare against Taiwan,
    including the use of the Three Warfares (public opinion, media, and
    legal warfare), are well covered in a variety of scholarly works. I
    defer to John Dotson's written testimony for this session to better
    understand specific methods and tactics the CCP employs. I commend his
    authorship of the Global Taiwan Institute report titled ``The Chinese
    Communist Party's Political Warfare Directed Against Taiwan: Overview
    and Analysis'' from May 2024. Jukka Aukia also published a detailed
    report relevant to this commission from the Hybrid CoE titled ``China's
    Hybrid Influence in Taiwan: Non-State Actors and Policy Responses''
    from April 2023. A January 2021 CSIS report called ``Protecting
    Democracy in an Age of Disinformation: Lessons from Taiwan'' is also
    relevant and useful.
        To summarize, the CCP's political warfare efforts are a highly
    orchestrated, interconnected, and multi-tiered set of activities that
    include so-called white, gray, and black elements: White, or overt
    means, involve CCP diplomatic and economic actions, official statements
    and state-controlled media propaganda, military operations, and trade
    relations that are used as levers of influence.
        Gray, or semi-overt means, involve law enforcement and militia
    encroachments in the maritime space, the use of foreign media and
    advanced information technology tools including algorithms and bots to
    propagate and reinforce disinformation, funding and manipulation of
    political parties and front groups, discounted junkets for politicians,
    academics, journalists, and students to visit China (who are then
    subjected to influence by CCP United Front representatives), temple
    donations and cultural exchanges, and co-option of social media
    influencers and entertainment celebrities, to name a few.
        Black, or covert means, involve agents emplaced for the purposes of
    espionage, influence, and/or sabotage, recruitment of former security
    force personnel, use of ghost fleet vessels to damage Taiwan
    infrastructure, establishment of sleeper cells and weapons caches,
    offensive cyber operations, computer network exploitation, and
    activation of criminal groups such as the Triads in Taiwan for various
    purposes ranging from harassment to potential assassinations. For
    Taiwan, there is no ability to distinguish between benign and malign
    Chinese actions. CCP infiltrations and co-option are legion. Every
    connection, relationship, arrangement, communication, and interaction
    has proven to serve as a possible threat vector for CCP influence and
    interference.
        It is also worth pointing out that many Chinese, out of loyalty to
    the CCP party line of ``reunification,'' which most now truly believe
    is a necessary part of China's so-called ``rejuvenation,'' contribute
    in pressuring Taiwan at many levels even without specific instructions
    from a Chinese government official. Chinese diaspora, whether now
    living in Taiwan or in other nations, voluntarily contribute commentary
    in social media, add to a climate of intimidation, and shape anti-
    Taiwan opinions and choices within their circles of influence.

    Taiwan's Measures to Protect Itself Against Political Warfare

        Taiwan has proven remarkably resilient in the face of the CCP's
    incessant political warfare onslaught; however, in the face of rampant
    CCP actions to disrupt, corrupt, and usurp power on Taiwan, Taipei's
    leaders knew they needed to strengthen its overall defense and security
    posture and raise the costs of doing business for those complicit in
    subversive activities. In March 2025, President Lai announced 17
    strategies to address five major threats posed by China: threats to
    Taiwan's sovereignty, military infiltration,
    obscuring national identity, societal infiltration through cross-strait
    exchanges, and economic coercion. The president defined his multi-
    faceted strategy as follows:

    1. Responding to Threats to National Sovereignty

        1.  Promote the Four Pillars of Peace action plan to demonstrate
    Taiwan's resolve against annexation by China.

        2.  Collaborate with allies to convey Taiwan's opposition to
    China's efforts to erase its sovereignty internationally.

    2. Responding to Military Infiltration and Espionage

        1.  Restore the military trial system to handle cases involving
    active-duty personnel suspected of treason or espionage.

        2.  Establish personnel management acts for military judges and
    separate organization acts for military courts and prosecutors.

        3.  Revise regulations for retirement benefits and penalties for
    expressions of loyalty to China by military personnel.

    3. Responding to Threats Against National Identity

        1.  Enhance scrutiny of Taiwanese citizens applying for
    identification documents in China, especially military personnel, civil
    servants, and educators.

        2.  Implement stricter requirements for Chinese nationals applying
    for permanent residency in Taiwan, prohibiting dual identity status.

        3.  Adjust residency systems for individuals from Hong Kong or
    Macau with additional provisions for long-term residency.

    4. Responding to United Front Infiltration Through Cross-Strait
    Exchanges

        1.  Raise public awareness about risks associated with travel to
    China and implement registration systems.

        2.  Establish a disclosure system for exchanges with China
    involving public officials and welfare organizations.

        3.  Restrict approval for Chinese individuals coming to Taiwan
    based on their united front history and cross-strait conditions.

        4.  Depoliticize cultural, academic, and educational exchanges
    while promoting healthy cross-strait interactions.

        5.  Enhance support for Taiwan's cultural industries to strengthen
    democratic cultural creation and competitiveness.

        6.  Provide entertainers with guidelines on conduct in China and
    address actions that endanger Taiwan's dignity.

    5. Responding to Economic Coercion

        1.  Strengthen measures against cognitive warfare and cybersecurity
    threats via AI, internet applications, and other tools.

        2.  Conduct a comprehensive review of administrative ordinances
    related to national security enforcement.

        3.  Implement legal frameworks to address gaps in regulations
    ensuring effective enforcement of national security measures.

        Other notable Taiwan measures to protect itself include the
    updating of Taiwan's National Security Law in 2022, which included more
    severe penalties for colluding with adversaries and tighter scrutiny on
    individuals and organizations with ties to China. Criminal penalties
    have been imposed for economic espionage and trade secret
    misappropriation in various crucial technology areas.
        Political actors and parties are prohibited from receiving mainland
    funding, and dual nationals who have the right to live and work in the
    PRC have been banned from running for office. Political parties are now
    required to issue annual financial statements meeting official
    standards. A regulatory framework has also been created to oversee
    private foundations that receive money.
        Taiwan is increasingly investigating and prosecuting more
    espionage-related cases (64 in 2024, up from 16 in 2021) with
    perpetrators, including retired and active-duty officers, receiving
    multi-year prison sentences. In 2022 and 2023, Taiwan authorities
    reportedly broke up 11 spy rings. In a breathtaking case, Taiwan
    arrested a former three-star Army general for planning to create a
    ``Fifth Column'' sabotage unit designed to assist the PLA in militarily
    seizing Taiwan. In another example, four soldiers who worked in the
    Presidential palace and who were paid to collect intelligence were also
    caught and arrested.
        Beyond jail time and fines, the 2002 National Security Law
    amendments added loss of pension penalties to military personnel, civil
    servants, teachers, and employees of state-owned institutions for
    illegal activities aimed at assisting the PRC. Amendments to Taiwan's
    Criminal Code of the Armed Forces are being considered regarding
    penalties for expressing loyalty to the enemy or involvement in pro-
    China united front work. Military courts with prosecutors are being
    revived. The time after leaving the government has also been lengthened
    before public officials can visit the mainland. Taiwan is stiffening
    accountability and sending a message about the price of working or
    profiting as a CCP shill.
        To address the growing threat of cyberattacks and infiltration,
    Taiwan plans to establish a National Cyber Security Command as early as
    next month (August 2025), which will add an operational arm to map
    Taiwan cyber vulnerabilities, identify threats, coordinate across
    government and private industry and build resilience in Taiwan's
    critical infrastructure and key industries. The new command will work
    in tandem with the National Institute of Cybersecurity, which was
    established in 2023 to advance domestic digital resilience. These two
    organizations look to the Administration for Cyber Security under the
    Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) for Taiwan's national cybersecurity
    strategy, regulatory framework, and resource allocation. Taiwan is also
    implementing zero-trust architectures and examining AI safety and
    quantum technologies, as well as other techniques, to help deal with
    current and future intellectual property theft, ransomware, deep fakes,
    and automated cyber assaults. Taiwan is one of the most cyber-afflicted
    places on Earth with tens of millions of attacks per month originating
    from PRC state-based and patriotic hackers.
        Notably, Taiwan has made significant strides in devising a strategy
    to counter the worst of the CCP's disinformation efforts. Taiwan has a
    small number of non-
    governmental fact-checking organizations that help invalidate fake
    news, expose forged documents, and discredit the firehose of falsehoods
    from mainland China. Regulations were established in 2018 and 2019 to
    punish those disseminating disinformation that is proven malicious,
    false, and harmful, although attribution in those cases remains
    difficult. The Ministry of Digital Affairs has helped institute
    government procedures and software to identify any trending
    disinformation in social media circles and nip it in the bud by
    performing instantaneous corrections. Government agencies created Civic
    Integrity Teams that are authorized to provide rapid, brief
    clarifications to debunk any social media distortions related to their
    mission. In general, Taiwan is on higher alert for any PRC attempts to
    create ``infodemics'' that could generate ``affective polarization,''
    fabrications curated to evoke emotional responses and drive wedges
    between Taiwan citizens, especially around election periods.
    Fortunately, Taiwan government credibility was burnished during the
    COVID years as they consistently provided prompt, reliable, and life-
    saving guidance to the public.
        The Ministry of Justice Investigations Bureau has also established
    a nascent Cognitive Warfare Research Center designed to unveil and
    prosecute CCP collaborators, ``useful idiots,'' and those in Taiwan who
    might cause public panic, maliciously stir up discontent with the
    government on controversial issues, manipulate the social atmosphere
    through content farms, defame government officials through deep-fake
    videos, or mislead voters with fabricated political commentary. The
    burden of proof and supporting evidence has proven such a high
    threshold that few prosecutions have been carried through on these
    issues to date.
        On the economic side, although still a vulnerability that the CCP
    frequently exploits (for example, by calibrating bans on Taiwan
    agriculture, fruit, and petrochemical products), Taiwan has also been
    diversifying its supply chains and markets away from China to reduce
    Beijing's leverage. In 2010, 84 percent of Taiwan's outbound foreign
    direct investment went to China. In 2024, only 8 percent of Taiwan's
    FDI went to China. Taiwan's New Southbound Policy, which was initiated
    in 2016, continues to redirect business into Southeast Asia, South
    Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Taiwanese businessmen have also reduced
    their presence in mainland China; less than half reside there compared
    to 15 years ago (approximately 175,000 remain).
        In addition, Taiwan has instituted export control measures to
    restrict trade with certain approved countries and listed entities,
    especially related to advanced chips and China. The Foreign Trade Act
    forms the legal basis for managing the trade of Strategic High-Tech
    Commodities (SHTC). Exports of SHTCs require special permission.
    Violations of export controls can lead to criminal or administrative
    penalties, depending on the destination and severity. Taiwan has also
    adopted a control measure to strengthen checks on end-uses and end-
    users of such commodities. Taiwan effectively has a system for two-way
    screening for both inward and outward investments.
        Chinese information and communications technology from the likes of
    Huawei, Alibaba, and Lenovo have been banned. Penalties for falsifying
    country-of-origin labels to hide Chinese imports have also become more
    severe.
        Other efforts designed to address PRC malign influence include the
    February 2025 decision by the Taiwan Ministry of Education to bar two
    PRC schools affiliated with the United Front Work Department from
    conducting exchanges in Taiwan. The Ministry also barred any exchanges
    with the ``Seven Sons of National Defense,'' PRC universities that
    traditionally funnel technology and graduates to the PLA. On top of
    this, the Ministry of Education supports media literacy training for
    Taiwan youth to help them become more discerning consumers of
    information.
        Commonsense yet long-overdue decisions have also been made. In
    2024, the Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council banned Taiwan citizens from
    working at the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots (ACFTC),
    which had been composed mainly of Taiwan residents of the PRC whose
    official aim is Chinese unification.
        Perhaps the most significant political effort underway to stop the
    PRC from using KMT proxies in the Legislative Yuan to undermine the DPP
    government and the executive branch (for example, by withholding
    funding for defense for months) is an election recall for a number of
    members of parliament. Recall results will come in two waves over the
    next 2 months. The recall process is complicated in Taiwan, but if the
    DPP can take back six seats in the legislative body, they will regain
    the majority and thwart persistent KMT spoiler actions designed to
    weaken the presidency and many of Lai's policies and spending
    priorities related to national security. The pro-unification wing of
    the KMT stands to be exposed, shamed, and penalized for its deep
    connections with the CCP if many of Lai's new accountability measures
    are successfully implemented, which explains some internal political
    resistance to some of his ideas.
        In the summer of 2024, President Lai also established a Whole-of-
    Society Defense Resilience Committee chaired by the President. The
    committee involves representatives from government agencies, industry
    and civil society groups, along with leading experts across multiple
    sectors to help strengthen resilience under any conditions--peacetime,
    crisis, or war--in Taiwan. Six major thrusts include: (1) civilian
    force training and utilization, (2) strategic material preparation and
    critical supply distribution, (3) energy and critical infrastructure
    operations and maintenance, (4) social welfare, medical care, and
    evacuation facility readiness, (5) information, transportation, and
    financial network protection, and (6) continuity of leadership and
    ensuring the ability of leaders to strategically communicate in a
    crisis.
        Taiwan is also building up defense capabilities that range from
    expanding manufacturing for unmanned systems, extending reservist
    training time, conducting more realistic exercises such as the
    currently underway Han Kuang 41 annual exercises, evaluating
    stockpiling options, and strengthening civil defense cooperation in a
    variety of areas. Taiwan is also evaluating or implementing new
    concepts related to littoral warfare, integration of unmanned and
    manned systems to create a more hybrid force, and defense in depth to
    include deep operations, urban warfare, and whole of society defense.
    The Minister of National Defense's strategic priorities include
    improving asymmetric capabilities, operational resilience, reserve
    forces, and countering gray zone activities. President Lai has also
    committed to spending more than 3 percent of Taiwan's GDP on defense,
    up from approximately 2.5 percent.

    Recommendations on How the U.S. Can Help Taiwan

        I would first point out that while the U.S. should consider
    expanding ways that it supports Taiwan, many of Taiwan's resiliency
    efforts that are already in place or in motion contain lessons for the
    U.S. and other allies and partners in how to confront endemic CCP
    political warfare and influence activities on their own soil.
        An executive list of those areas where further advancements and
    cooperation might strengthen Taiwan:

          Strategically, help reduce Taiwan's international
    isolation, including by using U.S. influence to encourage Taiwan
    admission to international bodies, programs, and projects that do not
    require statehood status.

          Further encourage Taiwan to spend more of its GDP on
    defense.

          Build in more opportunities for Taiwan to expand its
    Global Cooperation and Training Framework, which was established in
    2015 to foster international partnerships on public health, law
    enforcement, cybersecurity, humanitarian assistance/disaster relief,
    and media literacy. Consider adding Taiwan training for the
    international community on China's political warfare doctrine, tools,
    practices, and lessons in how to counter them.

          Support deeper Taiwan and U.S. cooperation on cyber
    defense, cybersecurity operator training, development of hunt teams,
    incident response lessons on foreign adversary tactics, and sharing of
    emerging malware/zero-day vulnerabilities and advanced persistent
    threat techniques. Regularize Taiwan Ministry of Digital Affairs, U.S.
    Cyber Command, and Department of Homeland Security Cyber-
    security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) coordination to
    increase resilience of Taiwan's critical infrastructure.

          Help Taiwan upgrade its classified clearance system,
    including reviewing classification categories, special access program
    procedures, sponsorship, background investigative vetting, adjudication
    procedures, continuous evaluation standards, and an associated law
    enforcement regime strict enough to enhance transparency and
    accountability for protecting sensitive information and dealing with
    unauthorized disclosures or other breaches of trust.

          Encourage Taiwan to adopt more stringent insider threat
    technologies across all sectors of society (but especially in
    government/security organizations and defense industries) using a
    number of world-class vendors that provide advanced user behavior
    analytics, user activity monitoring, and data loss prevention software,
    which can protect privacy while rapidly identifying concerning actions
    that deserve timely remediation and action.

          Cooperate with Taiwan on ways to improve procedures for
    selective disclosures of sensitive or classified cases of CCP political
    warfare activities to further expose PRC malign action and heighten
    global awareness of the threat.

          Help Taiwan develop a stricter, but fair-minded
    regulatory and liability framework over media outlets that act as
    mouthpieces for CCP propaganda and disinformation.

          Ensure that evolving Ukrainian lessons learned from the
    fight against Russian aggression in Europe promptly flow to Taiwan,
    facilitated as required by the best partner nations with insight and
    access to those lessons.

          Continue to help Taiwan develop and mature its Defense
    Innovation Office and related defense acquisition processes to help
    them streamline fielding of new defensive capabilities. Share process,
    authority, funding, and organizational lessons from the U.S. Defense
    Innovation Unit and other DoD Rapid Capabilities Offices in order to
    help Taiwan more rapidly adopt, experiment, and field a family of
    diverse systems needed on the battlefield soonest.

          Restore funding and organizational support for American
    public diplomacy and strategic messaging efforts in the Department of
    State and across the government to enable the U.S. information
    instrument to highlight Chinese and Russian ambitions, strategies,
    tactics, and actions designed to undermine key pillars of U.S. and
    Western strength. Reverse cuts and firings to critical organizations
    like the Agency for Global Media, which must address these issues
    through essential programs such as the Voice of America and Radio Free
    Asia and Europe. Reverse reductions in the U.S. Foreign Service that
    threaten to cede more diplomatic and information space to American
    adversaries to grow their influence at our expense.

          Issue a congressional mandate to the U.S. Intelligence
    Community to produce an annual threat assessment on Chinese and Russian
    political warfare similar to the annual DIA China Military Power
    report. Such a report should increase societal awareness of extant and
    developing political warfare stratagems and tactics, and compile best
    practices to address them, drawing from lessons learned from our
    European and Indo-Pacific allies, Latin American friends, and other
    partners such as India and Taiwan.

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                       Prepared Statement of Audrye Wong

                                   __________

                    China's Political Influence Tactics and
               Transnational Repression Activities Against Taiwan

                                     ______

        Senator Sullivan, Congressman Smith, Honorable Members of the
    Commission, thank you for the invitation to testify today.

        In my remarks today, I'd like to highlight three main points:

          Transnational repression (TNR) against the Taiwanese
    diaspora and supporters of Taiwan is the tip of the spear of broader
    PRC political influence efforts in the United States and other free
    societies. Such activities are driven by the United Front Work
    Department, a CCP organ that seeks to co-opt allies and silence enemies
    domestically and abroad. In the context of Taiwan, that means
    suppressing supporters of Taiwanese democracy and independence, and
    pushing the CCP's sovereignty claims and narratives over Taiwan.

          TNR and political influence activities consist of
    multipronged community and political mobilization to (i) engage in
    direct surveillance and harassment of Taiwan supporters on U.S. soil;
    (ii) rally portions of the overseas Chinese and Chinese-American
    communities to engage in public and highly visible displays of support
    for Beijing's position on Taiwan, including protests against Taiwanese
    leaders transiting through the United States; and (iii) over the longer
    term, shift broader political and public discourse on Taiwan through
    the positioning of pro-Beijing individuals as political aides and by
    operating as a political machine to get pro-Beijing candidates elected
    to office.

          Beijing also seeks to co-opt Western voices and form
    alliances with domestic interest groups, such as far-left anti-
    imperialist movements in the United States. The Chinese government sees
    this as further legitimizing its narratives and a strategic way to
    reframe the Taiwan issue as being about U.S. imperialism versus global
    peace.

               Transnational Repression and Political Influence:
                               Actors and Tactics

        Influence activities through the United Front involve a mix of
    official, quasi-official, and grassroots organizations. The Council for
    Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China is a United Front
    organization with multiple branches in the United States and globally,
    with the explicit and overarching goal of asserting Beijing's
    sovereignty claims over Taiwan. They regularly engage in activities
    such as issuing statements and organizing conferences on the topic.
        But TNR and influence activities relating to Taiwan and other
    issues also involve co-optation and mobilization of a broader array of
    overseas Chinese hometown associations and other grassroots
    organizations. Chinese writings on the United Front explicitly call for
    ``societal organizations'' (shetuan) and overseas Chinese community
    leaders and elites (jingying) to play a role in promoting Beijing's
    interests.\1\ These groups are often rallied, often in coordination
    with the Chinese consulate, for public demonstrations and protests,
    particularly surrounding events such as a Taiwanese president's transit
    through the United States or former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to
    Taiwan. Reports suggest that the Chinese government pays overseas
    Chinese to participate in these protests, although protest leaders have
    vigorously denied this, portraying such activities as a groundswell of
    patriotic sentiment.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Audrye Wong, ``How Beijing Thinks About Overseas Chinese and
    Foreign Influence: Principles and Tactics of United Front Policies,''
    The Asan Forum, May 12, 2025, https://theasanforum.org/how-beijing-
    thinks-about-overseas-chinese-and-foreign-influence-principles-and-
    tactics-of-united-front-policies/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
            public protests against taiwanese leaders and supporters
        Pro-Beijing protests around Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen's
    transit through New York and Los Angeles in late March and early April
    2023 provide an illuminating example of United Front dynamics and
    tactics. Over a hundred overseas Chinese organizations, claiming to
    speak for the overseas Chinese community, took out advertisements in
    major Chinese-language media outlets in the United States. Through
    open-source research examining online videos and photos of these
    events, I identified close to 30 groups involved in on-the-ground
    demonstrations. One protest leader claimed that 105 community
    associations were represented in these demonstrations. They would
    gather outside the hotel where President Tsai was staying, or in Los
    Angeles outside the Reagan Presidential Library where Tsai met then-
    Speaker McCarthy, waving Chinese and American flags, shouting slogans
    such as ``Tsai Ing-wen is a traitor,'' and holding banners proclaiming
    Taiwan as part of China.
        Similar protests took place during Tsai's transit through New York
    in July 2019. Fujianese groups played a major role in these protests,
    similar to the 2023 protests. There were also reports of physical
    altercations and attacks on pro-democracy dissidents and pro-Taiwan
    supporters.\2\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\  See e.g. https://www.voachinese.com/a/FIGHT-TSAI-NY-20190713/
    4998502.html.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    tactical alignments with domestic groups
        Additionally, each of these protests featured American participants
    from far-left anti-imperialist movements. In New York, a group called
    the Center for Political Innovation (in an interview with China Daily,
    a PRC state media outlet) decried Tsai for ``selling war'' and
    expressed support for ``one China.'' In Los Angeles, U.S. anti-war and
    anti-imperialist groups such as CODEPINK--which has close links to a
    media mogul financing CCP propaganda globally--the ANSWER Coalition,
    and Pivot to Peace, protested alongside Chinese groups outside the
    Reagan Library. When former Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in
    2022, some of these same left-wing groups also participated in protests
    alongside United Front-linked groups such as the San Francisco U.S.-
    China Peoples Friendship Association, the Council for Promotion of
    Peaceful Reunification of China, and the Chinese Consolidated
    Benevolent Association.
        In general, such messaging frames U.S. support for Taiwan as part
    of U.S. imperialism and warmongering, reframes China's position as one
    of preserving peace and the status quo, and by extension implicitly
    recognizes Beijing's sovereignty claims over Taiwan. These groups are
    not likely directly controlled by the CCP, but the Chinese government
    certainly is happy to capitalize on apparent ideological alliances of
    convenience and encourage Western voices to spread pro-Beijing
    narratives. In Beijing's view, this helps to legitimize its position to
    a broader audience within the United States and globally.
                       direct surveillance and harassment
        In another case, a China-born U.S. citizen in Massachusetts was
    indicted in 2023 for acting as a PRC agent. The U.S. Government alleged
    that Liang Litang provided Chinese government officials (including
    those from the Ministry of Public Security and the United Front Work
    Department) with information on pro-Taiwan organizations and their
    members, and co-founded the New England Alliance for the Peaceful
    Unification of China which organized counterprotests against pro-
    democracy and anti-CCP dissidents, including Hong Kong activists.\3\
    Interestingly, the defendant was also a member of Pivot to Peace and a
    local union, which framed his arrest as a political targeting of peace
    activists.\4\ Liang was acquitted by a jury in February 2025. The
    defense made arguments that Liang's actions were out of personal
    conviction and initiative rather than following the Chinese
    government's orders. This case illustrates how United Front
    mobilization also operates in a gray area wherein pro-China individuals
    can be incentivized or empowered to promote CCP interests even if not
    directly employed by the Chinese government, which contributes to a
    broader atmosphere of transnational repression even as the burden of
    proof for law enforcement becomes trickier.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \3\ https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/massachusetts-man-
    indicted-acting-illegal-agent-
    people-s-republic-china.
        \4\ See e.g. https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/06/22/chinese-
    american-worker-and-activist-arrested-for-advocating-for-peace-between-
    us-and-china/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             Longer-Term Strategy:
                   Reshaping the American Political Landscape

        Perhaps even more worryingly, United Front actors are also actively
    reshaping the political landscape in the United States in favor of pro-
    Beijing actors while suppressing supporters of Taiwan, with the
    ultimate goal of changing public discussions and attitudes regarding
    Taiwan's political status. My own research and other reporting has
    examined how CCP-linked groups and individuals are not only seeking to
    serve as political aides and power brokers, but also successfully
    acting as a political machine to get pro-Beijing individuals into
    elected office.
        Patronage politics makes fertile ground for foreign influence.
    Especially in areas with large ethnic Chinese populations, politicians
    seeking election are eager to tap Chinatown networks to secure votes.
    This leads to a reliance on political fixers and community liaisons,
    who by nature of their positions as community leaders also often have
    close ties to the Chinese government. In some cases, politicians may
    know relatively little--or exercise willful ignorance--about the role
    of the United Front in local politics. They may then be more willing to
    echo pro-Beijing policy positions because they perceive it as appealing
    to voters, sometimes without fully realizing the geopolitical
    implications.
        As I have written elsewhere, the Chinese government does not
    hesitate to play identity politics and exploit contentious social and
    political issues--such as anti-Asian hate, public safety, homeless
    shelters, or affirmative action and standardized testing--in order to
    gain currency among overseas Chinese populations and legitimize CCP-
    linked individuals and organizations as grassroots leaders defending
    the community's interests and rights.\5\ This goes hand in hand with
    propaganda messaging of longstanding racial discrimination against
    ethnic Chinese and Asian Americans (as well as touting the flaws of
    democracies).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \5\ Audrye Wong and Francis de Beixedon, ``China is Exploiting
    America's Social Divisions,'' Foreign Policy, March 6, 2025, https://
    foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/06/china-united-front-asian-americans-new-
    york/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Such mobilization in turn serves as a foundation for Beijing's
    political machine to field preferred candidates and rally votes to get
    them elected.\6\ As one example, in New York City, individuals and
    networks connected to the united front system have helped elect at
    least three local politicians in south Brooklyn in the last three
    years. In one example, a Republican candidate endorsed by United Front
    groups won a tight 2024 state senate race against Taiwan-born Democrat
    incumbent Iwen Chu, who had attended a dinner with Taiwanese leader
    Tsai Ing-wen during her transit through New York in 2023. United Front-
    linked groups have also participated in the electoral redistricting
    process to ensure a mobilization advantage for their favored candidate,
    even though this put them in opposition to other established Asian
    American civil society groups.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \6\ Audrye Wong and Francis de Beixedon, ``Beijing's Political
    Machine Makes Inroads in New York Politics,'' Jamestown China Brief,
    May 27, 2025, https://jamestown.org/program/beijings-
    political-machine-makes-inroads-in-new-york-politics/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        These political influence tactics, even at state and municipal
    levels, can have a powerful trickle-up effect, whereby politicians are
    increasingly aligned with Beijing's interests and beholden to CCP-
    linked actors. This could eventually influence broader policy discourse
    on issues such as Taiwan, Xinjiang, and human rights in China, in favor
    of the Chinese government's positions.

                     Shaping Academic Narratives on Taiwan

        It is also worth noting the channels through which the Chinese
    government attempts or could attempt to shape academic narratives on
    Taiwan and other politically sensitive issues. To the extent that
    scholarly research and writing is seen as objective and fact-based,
    hidden or overt influence attempts to shift or censor discussions of
    Taiwan's political status cannot only have a chilling effect on freedom
    of speech but also affect the education that younger generations are
    receiving as well as broader public understanding of such issues.
        First, stemming directly from United Front influence activities,
    Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) on university
    campuses have been recently highlighted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping as
    an important player in promoting Beijing's interests abroad. There have
    been several reported instances where CSSAs and Chinese students
    disrupted campus events featuring speakers critical of the CCP, or
    called out professors for not adhering to Beijing's claims over Taiwan.
    There are also concerns over the peer surveillance and monitoring of
    Chinese students (or faculty and staff, especially those who have
    family in China) and reporting to the Chinese consulate of any anti-
    regime activities.
        A second channel of potential influence over academic narratives is
    financial dependence on PRC sources, which is a global phenomenon. Many
    universities in the United States and elsewhere have become reliant on
    Chinese students for tuition revenue. This has led university
    administrators to become more concerned about hosting events or
    allowing free speech that could anger the Chinese student body and
    potentially endanger much-needed revenue. Moreover, research institutes
    and programs funded by donors with links to the Chinese government or
    otherwise sympathetic to CCP causes could spark concerns of academic
    self-censorship.

                        Taiwan as the Tip of the Spear:
              Broader Patterns of Authoritarian Foreign Influence

        The actors and tactics used in these above-mentioned cases are part
    of a broader pattern of intensifying PRC influence activities. While
    stamping out Taiwanese ``separatism''--as a stated core interest of the
    Chinese government--certainly remains a foremost goal of United Front
    work, Beijing is using similar methods to shape narratives and policies
    on issues from Hong Kong and Xinjiang to U.S. politics. Several of the
    groups and individuals protesting Tsai's transit through the United
    States were also involved in the November 2023 demonstrations during
    Chinese leader Xi Jinping's visit to San Francisco for the APEC summit,
    including physical assaults of pro-democracy and anti-CCP activists.
    The leader of one of these groups, Harry Lu of the American Changle
    Association, was subsequently arrested for operating an overseas police
    station in New York. Another individual, John Chan, is seen as a
    prominent political and community organizer in New York City with close
    links to several local politicians.
        CCP political influence activities include but go beyond
    transnational repression. They involve broader and longer-term attempts
    at the co-optation and control of overseas Chinese communities,
    including to change their beliefs and behavior; and also to shift
    broader public and political discourse in the United States on issues
    such as Taiwan.
        One policy challenge in dealing with United Front influence
    activities is that many of the overseas Chinese grassroots groups wear
    dual hats by design--while possibly co-opted as instruments of
    Beijing's foreign policy, they provide legitimate public goods and
    social services to ethnic Chinese communities.\7\ Consolidating their
    community leadership role in turn serves as the basis for promulgating
    CCP narratives and interests.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \7\ Audrye Wong, ``How Beijing Thinks About Overseas Chinese and
    Foreign Influence: Principles and Tactics of United Front Policies,''
    The Asan Forum, May 12, 2025, https://theasanforum.org/how-beijing-
    thinks-about-overseas-chinese-and-foreign-influence-principles-and-
    tactics-of-united-front-policies/.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Additionally, there are multiple complex incentives for individuals
    to participate in pro-Beijing and anti-Taiwan activities. Members of
    the overseas Chinese community may sometimes be manipulated or used as
    geopolitical pawns. Attending an anti-Taiwan protest or waving flags to
    welcome President Xi's visit to San Francisco does not necessarily mean
    that person is a CCP acolyte--they may have been paid to come or view
    it as a social event. Shaking hands with a PRC consul-general may
    reflect a desire to gain political connections and expand personal
    business or career opportunities. At the same time, it is hard for
    overseas Chinese elites to claim complete ignorance of potential CCP
    leverage given their required familiarity with the political system--
    there is no free lunch.

                              Policy Implications

        To counter China, we should not become like China. While the CCP
    may aspire to implement a Marxist-Leninist style ``whole-of-society''
    approach in its foreign influence efforts, the U.S. and other
    governments should not respond with a ``whole-of-society'' mindset.
    Overreaction will only add more fuel to the fire, lend credence to
    Beijing's narratives of Western discrimination, and push the overseas
    Chinese community into CCP arms.
        Enhanced law enforcement capacity is a necessary though not
    sufficient response to combating transnational repression and
    authoritarian political influence efforts. Knowledge dissemination and
    systematic training on the different forms and tactics of malign
    influence as well as how to mitigate potential biases is key to raise
    awareness and understanding not just at the federal but also the state
    and local levels, for law enforcement officials as well as elected
    officials.
        At the same time, the United States needs to increase societal and
    political resilience from within. A sophisticated and effective U.S.
    policy response would avoid tarring all ethnic Chinese with the same
    brush, as often they are caught between a rock and a hard place. We
    need to address the root causes of how the CCP gains affection and
    legitimacy among these communities, and bolster America's own
    capabilities to combat authoritarian influence and eliminate such
    vulnerabilities. This serves to combat TNR and foreign influence as
    part of a broader pattern even before a specific activity rises to the
    level of a crime to be tackled by law enforcement.
        Reducing Chinese influence on the ground requires empowering
    alternative
    legitimate voices in the form of grassroots organizations and community
    resources that are responsive to local needs and interests, so that CCP
    voices are not able to dominate the societal and political landscape or
    claim to represent the entire Chinese American--and even Asian
    American--communities.
        Elected officials at the local and national levels should be more
    proactive in seeking information about the backgrounds of community
    leaders and organizations and engaging with a broad array of community
    representatives and viewpoints rather than just taking the easy route
    and listening to the loudest voice (or the one promising the most
    votes). U.S. national security is threatened by malign influence, but
    so are the voices and rights of Chinese Americans and Americans writ
    large.

    --------------

        The American Enterprise Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit,
    501(c)(3) educational organization and does not take institutional
    positions on any issues. The views expressed in this testimony are
    those of the author.
                                   __________

                    Prepared Statement of Hon. Dan Sullivan

        Today's hearing comes at a pivotal moment. For 75 years, the
    People's Republic of China has vowed to bring Taiwan under its control.
    We have our own Taiwan Relations Act. We have our ``One China'' policy.
    However, in recent years, that pressure--not just, by the way, with
    regard to the Taiwanese, but other people, including American
    citizens--has intensified and been globalized, with Beijing not only
    targeting Taiwan across the strait, but also projecting intimidation
    across borders and institutions, using political transnational
    repression as a tool of coercion over people across the globe.
        The title of this hearing rhymes with major legislation of mine,
    the Stand with Taiwan Act. That bill, which I've introduced in the last
    two Congresses and will soon be introducing again, has great bipartisan
    support. Senators Graham, Duckworth and Coons are the top co-sponsors.
    I encourage strong bipartisan support with my colleagues here. What
    that would do is, if there is a military invasion of Taiwan by the
    Communist Party and the PLA of China, trigger punishing comprehensive
    sanctions on the Chinese economy and particularly leaders of the
    Chinese Communist Party--punishing economic, trade, financial, energy.
    We all want deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. I think the threat of
    these massive sanctions might be critical in terms of deterring a
    cross-strait invasion of Taiwan by the PLA.
        We also need to deal with the here and now of Chinese coercion
    abroad. Again, this hearing is going to focus on the coercion of
    Taiwanese citizens. But I want to make sure, and I certainly will be
    asking questions in my Q & A with the witnesses about repression of
    others--people from Hong Kong, American citizens, which is really
    unacceptable when that happens--by the Chinese Communist Party. They're
    good at coercing their own citizens, but they're not going to, with
    this Congress, be allowed to coerce Americans or those who are our
    allies.
        These threats are multifaceted--AI-generated disinformation; the
    extraterritorial application of PRC laws; of course, diplomatic
    pressure on Taiwan's allies; the public intimidation of democratically
    elected leaders. By the way, that's something the Chinese Communist
    Party would never do. They never stand for election themselves. They
    fear their own people because they know they probably wouldn't get
    elected if they had to stand for election. So it makes them nervous
    when there are people who actually stand for election like we do and go
    before the people.
        The PRC is also attempting to rewrite international norms,
    distorting U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2758, and pressuring
    countries to embrace Beijing's view on all necessary measures it might
    use to achieve unification with regard to Taiwan. Most disturbingly,
    the PRC has labeled Taiwan's vice president, whom I know well and who
    is a good friend of mine, and other officials as ``obstinate Taiwan
    independence diehards,'' threatening them with life imprisonment or
    worse. It has declared that any Taiwanese citizen, including those
    living abroad, can be punished under PRC law. In a closed-door meeting
    earlier this year, senior CCP official Wang Huning reportedly called
    for a global expansion of these intimidation tactics. According to
    credible reporting, Wang instructed embassies and security services--
    hopefully they're not doing it here in America, but they probably are--
    to implement ``proactive intimidation'' against so-called radical
    Taiwanese independence advocates worldwide, including in the United
    States of America.
        These were not abstract threats. Last year, Czech intelligence
    uncovered a planned ``kinetic operation'' by the PRC to intimidate then
    Vice President-elect Hsiao on her visit there. Again, she's a friend of
    mine--a great person. The PRC is also harassing international media
    outlets for interviewing Taiwanese leaders. Individuals around the
    world who criticize Beijing's Taiwan policy have been doxed and placed
    under surveillance. This is transnational repression. It is a
    coordinated strategy to isolate Taiwan, dominate the global narrative
    through fear and coercion, and again, not only against Taiwanese
    citizens, but against other citizens, including our citizens.
        Every day the CCP grows bolder and more aggressive in its threats
    against Taiwan, the United States, and our allies in the Indo-Pacific.
    We need to call that out, have open hearings like this, and push back
    against this transnational repression.
                                   __________

                     Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith

        Good morning, and congratulations, Senator Sullivan, on assuming
    the chair and gavel of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
    I look forward to working closely with you on so many critical topics,
    including on the topic of today's hearing, Countering the PRC's
    political warfare and transnational repression, directed at democratic
    Taiwan.
        In 1999, two People's Liberation Army colonels, Colonel Qiao and
    Wang, published a book entitled ``Unrestricted Warfare.'' It is a
    fascinating book and one which sees everything short of kinetic as a
    battlefield.
        How is it that we have so many fentanyl overdoses in the United
    States? Read ``Unrestricted Warfare'' and understand. What is lawfare,
    and how is open access to our court system weaponized against us? Read
    ``Unrestricted Warfare'' and understand. Simply put, it is a primer on
    what we can call ``political warfare,'' aimed squarely at the United
    States.
        But standing in the way is the de facto island nation of Taiwan,
    the de jure Republic of China. I think we sometimes fail to appreciate
    how much vitriolic attention Taiwan, as a frontline state, absorbs from
    mainland China that otherwise would be directed at the United States.
    As the vital center of the First Island Chain, Taiwan is a buffer and
    our first line of defense against the People's Republic of China, which
    is bent upon seeking hegemony and dominating the entire world,
    supplanting the United States as the world's preeminent power.
        In many ways, Taiwan is similar to Israel, another frontline state,
    which absorbs much of the concentrated attention--from terror bombs to
    propaganda--that otherwise would be directed at the United States by
    jihadist groups and state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran. In this
    regard, both Taiwan and Israel are too often overlooked or taken for
    granted by too many in the United States. We should keep in mind
    throughout today's hearing that Taiwan's security is America's
    security, and the political warfare and transnational repression
    campaigns that are waged against Taiwan in an amplified manner are also
    being waged here in a less evident way, though it is often very evident
    among Chinese diaspora communities in the United States who are
    targeted by the Chinese Communist Party.
        It is because of this need to protect American citizens and those
    that are here lawfully who are targeted by CCP transnational
    repression--in particular those of ethnic Chinese, Tibetan, or Uyghur
    descent--that Senate Ranking Member Merkley and I, joined by Ranking
    Member McGovern on the House side, introduced the Transnational
    Repression Policy Act last Congress, and why we will be reintroducing
    it again soon, joined by Chair Sullivan.
        But again, it is the example of Taiwan that is instructive. We saw
    Taiwan's Vice President Bi-khim Hsiao--a friend to many of us here in
    Washington from her time as Ambassador--being targeted during a trip
    she made to the Czech Republic in March 2024 with a ``demonstrative
    kinetic action,'' according to a Czech military intelligence spokesman,
    said to be a staged vehicle accident planned while she was in her car.
    We have seen similar methods deployed here in the United States against
    famed Democracy Wall dissident Wei Jingsheng. Wei was in his car
    driving home when two cars attempted to force him off the road.
        There is also much we can learn from how Taiwan counters CCP
    political warfare. The CCP bombards Taiwan with propaganda and false
    narratives, seeking to manipulate the information space, including
    through the use of ``deep fake'' video clips created using artificial
    intelligence.
        Rather than silencing ``influencers'' and others who parrot pro-
    Beijing messages under the guise of combating ``disinformation,''
    groups such as the Taiwan FactCheck Center provide context to rebut
    such messages. Chat group users of the messaging app Line, which is
    prevalent in Taiwan, are able to flag statements that appear
    problematic, and the Taiwan FactCheck Center will provide context so as
    to allow the user to become a more informed consumer of information.
        The Taiwanese experience, wherein democracy rose from an
    authoritarian and martial law past, has a lot to teach us regarding the
    importance of freedom and free speech. The key to combating wrong
    speech is not censorship, but more speech. These are lessons we can
    learn and take to heart from Asia's most vibrant democracy.
        Finally, I would like to note that Taiwan has a story to tell, not
    only to its own people or to the West, but also to the people of China,
    bypassing the Chinese Communist Party and overcoming the Great Firewall
    the CCP has built. Taiwan's President William Lai Ching-te has recently
    been giving speeches on Ten Topics, ranging from discussion of
    sovereignty to democracy to constitutionalism and the rule of law. Of
    course his principal audience is the people of Taiwan. But judging from
    the way the CCP mouthpiece Global Times has been responding, his
    message is also penetrating the ears of people in China, who live under
    Communist oppression.
        The Chinese Communist Party, in the wake of the Tiananmen Massacre,
    made a bargain with the Chinese people: You acknowledge our total
    political control, and we will make you economically prosperous. For
    much of the so-called Reform Era, China did grow economically, despite
    political repression. Xi Jinping, however, doubled down on repression
    and destroyed the Chinese economy due to his ridiculous economic
    policies. Thus the Chinese people have neither prosperity nor freedom.
        Taiwan's message to China is, you can have both prosperity and
    freedom. So long as Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party remain
    in power, however, the Chinese people will enjoy neither, and the
    people of Taiwan will always be under threat.
        I hope for a free Taiwan, forever independent of communist control.
    I also hope for a free China, independent of communist control. Thank
    you.
                                   __________

                  Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern

        Chair Sullivan, Co-chair Smith, thank you for convening this
    hearing, the first of the 119th Congress. Senator Sullivan,
    congratulations on your appointment as chair of this bipartisan
    Commission. I served as chair in the 116th Congress. I hope you find it
    as rewarding and productive as I did. At that time my co-chair was
    Senator Marco Rubio. His deputy staff director was Peter Mattis, who
    sits at the witness table today. It is good to see you back here,
    Peter.
        Our biggest accomplishment was the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor
    Prevention Act. This has been a landmark bill. It is human rights
    legislation with teeth. It applies a real enforcement action--an import
    ban--to a failure to meet a human rights standard--forced labor. This
    bill happened because of the quality work by the professional staff at
    this Commission. They performed the research, organized a roundtable
    and a hearing, and helped draft the legislation. The staff is a
    valuable resource. I hope you appreciate their work as much as I did.
        The Commission's biggest work product is the Annual Report. It
    assesses the status of human rights and the rule of law in China. It
    has proved useful not only to policymakers in Congress and the
    executive branch but to lawyers helping asylum seekers fleeing
    persecution in China. But I worry about the quality of this report
    moving forward.
        The 2024 Annual Report includes 322 citations to Radio Free Asia,
    52 to Voice of America, 58 to the China Labor Bulletin, 40 to Freedom
    House, and 17 to China Labor Watch. Each of these organizations has
    reduced or ceased operations, or been forced to close, due to the
    decisions of the Trump administration, which has illegally withheld
    funds appropriated by Congress. What will future reports look like
    without these sources? What insight will we miss? What information will
    we never see?
        The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would not have been possible
    without the reporting of the Radio Free Asia Uyghur service. It has
    been our best source of information from inside Xinjiang--basically the
    only source of information that Uyghurs get from the outside world. Now
    it is all but gone. What future legislation will the Commission not
    accomplish because its best sources of information have been eliminated
    by President Trump?
        Today's hearing looks at transnational repression (TNR) through the
    lens of Taiwan, and how the Chinese government reaches beyond borders
    to try to silence people in Taiwan and in the diaspora. Transnational
    repression is a concern for all of us. Federal agencies, including the
    FBI, have taken important strides to address these abuses.
        I am pleased to have joined Co-chair Smith and former Chair Senator
    Jeff Merkley as sponsors of the Transnational Repression Act to
    strengthen the whole-of-government effort against TNR. I hope we can
    reintroduce it soon.
        On June 24, I chaired a hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights
    Commission on transnational repression. We received policy
    recommendations to strengthen interagency and multilateral coordination
    to combat TNR. We heard from Freedom House, whose demonstrated
    expertise on TNR did not protect it from having its grant terminated by
    the State Department. I don't make such criticism to be partisan. I
    make it as a matter of policy. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.
    We reduce our ability to understand China. We give gifts to the Chinese
    government. We vacate spaces their influence fills.
        If we really want to help the Taiwanese people resist Beijing's
    influence, we need to invest in counter-TNR resources, rather than pull
    back. This requires the courage to stand up and say no to DOGE and to
    President Trump.
        The people of Taiwan are wonderful. Taiwan is not the People's
    Republic of China. We cannot forget that this Commission's focus is the
    People's Republic of China. Our mandate is to assess the Chinese
    government's compliance with international human rights standards. Not
    American or Chinese standards. Global standards, as established by U.N.
    instruments and treaties.
        The rights that the people of China are entitled to enjoy are
    universal--not rights as determined by the Chinese government, or by
    American politicians. Universal rights. The Commission's work must
    reflect this.
        Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to an informative
    hearing and to the Commission's work this Congress.

                           Submissions for the Record

                                  ----------

                          Submission of John Dotson,
                       Director, Global Taiwan Institute
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                              Witness Biographies

        Fan Yun, Member of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan

        Fan Yun is a member of the Legislative Yuan of the Republic of
    China (Taiwan) for the Democratic Progressive Party. She was first
    elected in 2020. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the
    Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University, where she
    completed an MA, and served as Ambassador-at-Large of Taiwan. She holds
    a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University. Her research interests
    include social movements, civil society, and gender politics. Among
    other things, Fan participated in the Wild Lily Student Movement for
    democracy in 1990 and in the 2014 Sunflower Movement protesting a trade
    pact with the PRC. She is an advisor for Democracy Without Borders and
    a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

        Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, USN (Ret.), Former Commander of the
    Office of Naval Intelligence

        Mike Studeman, former Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence
    and a retired Rear Admiral, is one of our nation's leading national
    security professionals, with extensive global experience in
    intelligence, foreign policy, and defense matters. He is an
    internationally recognized expert on Asian affairs with deep expertise
    on China. Mike is a MITRE National Security Fellow and is on the Board
    of Advisors of the National Bureau of Asian Research. Mike led
    intelligence operations at every level from the tactical to the
    strategic, and in Navy, joint, national, and interagency assignments.
    He supported combat operations ranging from Desert Storm to the Balkans
    to Afghanistan. He also contributed to a range of counter-terrorism,
    counter-narcotics, and counter-proliferation operations. Mike also
    helped formulate strategies and execute operations to deal with
    challenges from Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China.
        Mike's joint assignments as a flag officer include National
    Intelligence Manager--Maritime for the Director of National
    Intelligence, Director of the National Maritime Intelligence
    Integration Office, 3 years as the Director of Intelligence (J2) for
    the Nation's largest Combatant Command, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command,
    and Director of Intelligence (J2) for the U.S. Southern Command in
    Miami, Florida.
        Mike was appointed by President Bush as a White House Fellow in
    2005. He went on to become the only officer ever to serve as Special
    Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, the Vice Chief of Naval
    Operations, and the U.S. Fleet Forces Commander. He also held major
    command posts as a Captain, including commanding the Joint Intelligence
    Operations Center for U.S. Cyber Command and Commander of the Hopper
    Global Communications Center.
        Mike's alma mater is the College of William and Mary. He is an
    Honors Graduate in Mandarin Chinese, the Defense Language Institute; a
    Distinguished Graduate of the National War College; and a Distinguished
    Graduate in Asian Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School. In 2024 he
    published a leadership book called ``Might of the Chain: Forging
    Leaders of Iron Integrity.''

        Peter Mattis, President, The Jamestown Foundation

        Peter Mattis is President of The Jamestown Foundation. He
    previously served as Senator Marco Rubio's staff director of the
    Congressional-Executive Commission on China from 2019 to 2021, where he
    was part of the legislative team that passed the Hong Kong Human Rights
    and Democracy Act, Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, Tibetan Policy and
    Support Act, and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Mr. Mattis has
    been analyzing the Chinese Communist Party's political warfare and
    intelligence activities for nearly two decades and is co-author of
    ``Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer.'' He began his
    career as a counterintelligence analyst at the CIA and most recently
    served as a senior fellow with the U.S. House Select Committee on the
    Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese
    Communist Party.

        Audrye Wong, Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow, American Enterprise
    Institute and Assistant Professor of Political Science and
    International Relations, University of Southern California

        Audrye Wong is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American
    Enterprise Institute, and assistant professor of political science and
    international relations at the University of Southern California. Her
    research covers China's economic statecraft, including a forthcoming
    book from Oxford University Press, as well as China's foreign influence
    activities and propaganda campaigns. Her work has been supported by the
    Smith Richardson Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense, among
    others. Audrye received a Ph.D. in Security Studies from Princeton
    University's School of Public and International Affairs, where she was
    a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow. She has held
    affiliations with the Wilson Center, Brookings Institution, Harvard's
    Belfer Center, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.