[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE PRC'S THREATS TO AMERICANS:
TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
AND STATE-LEVEL RESPONSES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE
COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 4, 2026
__________
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
64-049 PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
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
JAMES WALKINSHAW, Virginia
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Not yet appointed
Scott Flipse, Staff Director
Mary Vigil, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Statements
Opening Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a Representative from New
Jersey; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China..... 1
Statement of James P. McGovern, a Representative from
Massachusetts.................................................. 3
Statement of Suhas Subramanyam, a Representative from Virginia... 6
Statement of Stephen J. Cox, Counsel to the Governor, State of
Alaska......................................................... 8
Statement of Eliot Bostar, Nebraska State Senator................ 10
Statement of Arthur Liu, owner, Inter-Pacific Law Group.......... 12
Statement of Anna Kwok, Board Director and former Executive
Director, Hong Kong Democracy Council.......................... 15
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Cox, Stephen J................................................... 29
Bostar, Eliot.................................................... 31
Liu, Arthur...................................................... 34
Kwok, Anna....................................................... 35
Smith, Hon. Chris................................................ 36
Sullivan, Hon. Dan............................................... 37
McGovern, Hon. James P........................................... 38
Submissions for the Record
Submission of Levi Browde and James Yu, Falun Dafa Information
Center......................................................... 41
Submission of Dr. Henryk Szadziewski, Director of Research,
Uyghur Human Rights Project.................................... 53
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form.......................... 57
Witness Biographies.............................................. 59
(iii)
THE PRC'S THREATS TO AMERICANS:
TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
AND STATE-LEVEL RESPONSES
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2026
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was held from 1:34 p.m. to 3:07 p.m., in Room
106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC,
Representative Chris Smith, Co-chair, Congressional-Executive
Commission on China, presiding.
Also present: Representatives McGovern and Subramanyam.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHRIS SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
JERSEY AND CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-
EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Co-chair Smith. The Commission will come to order. And
thank you all for being here, and my good friend and colleague,
Jim McGovern, at this hearing of the CECC. I want to thank all
of you in advance. Before we begin I want to mark a solemn
anniversary. Today marks the 37th anniversary of the Tiananmen
Square massacre. Thirty-seven years ago millions of Chinese
citizens peacefully asked for political reform, democratic
openness, and basic human dignity. Their hope was met with
tanks. The Chinese Communist Party unleashed the People's
Liberation Army on peaceful demonstrators.
Mothers lost sons, fathers lost daughters, and China lost
an idealistic generation to the violence of June 4th, 1989.
There has been no full accounting of those killed, imprisoned,
or disappeared. The Party still tries to erase a massacre the
world must never forget. But Tiananmen cannot be erased. The
enduring image of that day is the Tank Man, the solitary figure
standing before a column of tanks. His courage reminds us that
the desire for freedom is not Western, not foreign, and it's
not imposed from the outside. It is universal.
As I have said before, a choice has been made by all of us.
You either stand with the Tank Man or you stand with the tank.
There is no middle ground. Tiananmen is not a detour for this
hearing. It is the key to understanding it. The same party that
tried to crush truth at home now tries to chase truth abroad.
The tactics have not changed. The technology has changed, the
reach has expanded, but the purpose is the same--to make people
afraid to speak the truth, by almost any means necessary.
Inside China, the CCP uses surveillance, censorship, prison,
the pervasive use of torture, forced disappearance, and fear to
maintain their grip on power.
But what happens in China no longer stays in China. The
Party wants to control what is said about China here, and to
control who says it. The CECC has warned about the CCP's long
arm for years. Long before transnational repression became a
common phrase, I held a dozen hearings or so of this Commission
and in my Subcommittee on Human Rights, documenting and
exposing a consistent pattern of global abuse, starting with
Confucius Institutes back in 2014. Over time, tactics have
become more digital and more ruthless--detaining family members
in China, doxing, the use of spyware, deepfakes, Hong Kong
bounties, and the illegal
police stations right here in the United States.
It is outrageous and unacceptable, and it absolutely must
stop. Transnational repression is not only a threat to
Americans, it's a broader, interconnected CCP strategy. We see
that strategy in scam networks stealing from U.S. citizens,
fentanyl poisoning of our cities and our young people, PRC-
linked land purchases near military installations, efforts to
corrupt politicians and elections, steal private personnel and
biometric data, and intellectual property theft from businesses
and universities.
I would note parenthetically, when I held a hearing on how
Google, Microsoft, and Cisco were enabling the Chinese arm of
repression in China by censoring what people could see when
they did a Google search, my personal computer, my committee's
computers, were all hit. Everything was taken. And it was all
traced to Beijing. That was in 2005. They have gotten far more
effective at doing that kind of repression. Everything was
gone. And, you know, including personally identifiable
information on me, and I'm not the only one. Many other people
had the same thing happen.
We see that strategy replicated in other countries as well.
It's not just the United States. It's Canada and elsewhere.
These may all look like separate problems, but they share a
common purpose--
exploit our openness, gather leverage, weaken our institutions,
spread propaganda, and make Americans pay a price for standing
up to Beijing. But I have news for them. We're not backing
down. The members of this Commission, the people who are here
today, our very distinguished witnesses, we will never bow down
to this tyranny. Transnational repression is the most personal
form of that strategy. It brings pressure campaigns to the
doorstep of students, the journalists, dissidents, artists, and
family members.
That is why state and local responses matter. A victim may
first call the police. A student may go to a university
official. A state attorney general may see the pattern. A state
legislator may realize the existing law does not fit the
threat. So the questions are practical. Do local officials and
officers recognize this threat? Do universities know how to
protect their students? Do states have the tools they need? And
does the Federal Government have a real strategy? And are we
deploying enough of our capacity and capability to mitigate
this threat?
That's why I'm so proud to work with Chairman Sullivan,
Senator Merkley, and Jim McGovern on the Transnational
Repression Policy Act. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation
would define the abuse, improve coordination, train officials,
support targeted communities, and hold perpetrators
accountable--because victims need more than just sympathy; they
need protection and a place to turn, where those to whom they
turn are well informed and equipped with tools to stop it.
But let me make one point clear. A regime that fears a
student's question, a refugee's protest, an artist's statue, or
the simple memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre is not
strong. It's not a confident superpower. I remember when we did
that hearing--we brought in the Google people. We had them
testify, as well as Cisco, Microsoft, and Yahoo. And I put up
on the board what you get in China when you put in the
Tiananmen Square massacre. You get nothing but pretty pictures
of people smiling and taking snapshots and videos there on the
square. Nothing about the massacre or the protests. They live
in a culture of denial, and that denial has to be eradicated.
I would say that any so-called superpower that does that
lives in fear, and they are very afraid. It makes them perhaps
even more dangerous. But they are not operating out of a
position of confidence or power. Fear in the hands of a
dictatorship, like I said, is dangerous. It becomes coercion.
It becomes censorship. It becomes repression. It crosses
borders and reaches right into our own communities. So our
answer must be unmistakable. If the CCP threatens people here,
there must be investigations and prosecutions. If it reaches
across our borders to spread fear, there must be sanctions. If
it takes family members hostage to silence a critic, which they
do all the time, we will demand their release and expose the
cruelty of that tactic. And if it tries to censor a free
people, we will defend and spread the rights that Beijing fears
most--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of
assembly, and the right to tell the truth without fear. Because
in the United States of America, unlike China, no one needs the
Party's permission to speak, to worship, to protest, to
remember, or to be free. And that's why this hearing matters.
And that's why having four very distinguished people testifying
will help us get that message across. Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Co-chair Smith appears in the
Appendix.]
Jim.
STATEMENT OF JAMES P. McGOVERN,
A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Representative McGovern. Thank you very much. I want to
thank my colleague from New Jersey, Congressman Smith, for his
words and for his commitment to human rights, not only in China
but all around the world. Good morning, everybody. I want to
welcome our witnesses and our guests to today's hearing on
transnational repression.
Today is June 4th, and as Co-chair Smith pointed out, 37
years ago the Chinese government directed the military to
attack civilians who were exercising their right to freedom of
expression to call for economic and political reform. Let us
never forget those who bravely stood for freedom in Tiananmen
Square and other cities, the mothers who never knew the fate of
their children, and those who continue to tell the stories in
the face of a government that seeks to silence them. And let us
not forget that any society whose leaders are willing to use
lethal force against peaceful protesters is a society at risk
of losing its fundamental liberties.
I am glad that the Commission continues to address
transnational repression. In 2020, Co-chair Marco Rubio and I
created a new chapter called ``Human Rights Violations in the
U.S. and Globally'' in the annual report. And CECC staff have
just released a new special report on transnational repression.
I always appreciate the dedication of the nonpartisan subject
matter experts who work for this Commission. This report is
absolutely worth reading.
China is the world's worst perpetrator of transnational
repression. Freedom House lists the PRC with the most
incidents, 319 since 2014. And that only accounts for reported
incidents. Who knows how many people have gotten threatening
texts or calls that they are too scared to report. But
transnational repression is more than China. Freedom House
lists Tajikistan, Rwanda, Russia, Egypt, and Belarus among the
biggest violators. Last year I chaired a Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission hearing highlighting TNR by India, Pakistan,
and Hong Kong. Yesterday afternoon Co-chair Smith and I
convened a hearing on Turkiye, listed with 160 TNR incidents.
You know, hearings are fine, but it really is time for
action. Advocates tell us that their number one goal is to
create a standard definition of transnational repression. I am
proud to join with CECC leaders Senators Merkley and Sullivan,
and Co-chair Smith, in sponsoring the Transnational Repression
Policy Act. It defines TNR in statute, strengthening efforts to
counter it at the federal, state, and local level. This bill
was first introduced in the House three years ago, but it has
gone nowhere. In March, Freedom House led a coalition of 35
organizations, including Uyghur, Tibetan, Chinese, and Hong
Kong human rights groups, in a statement to the chairs of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, asking them to mark up the bill. Foreign
Affairs has scheduled four markups since that letter, but the
Transnational Repression Policy Act never makes the agenda. I
ask Chairman Mast in the House to schedule it, to act.
Our bill is important. It would give the U.S. the tools to
lead on TNR. Equally important, we must acknowledge that the
tools will only be effective if we avoid double standards. I
worry that we're falling short. One, President Biden started,
and President Trump completed, the rehabilitation of Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who directed the murder of
Jamal Khashoggi in Turkiye. We lose credibility when the U.S.
Government allows impunity for transnational repression.
Two, this Commission characterized the deportation by
Thailand of 40 Uyghurs to China as transnational repression,
yet the Trump administration has deported individuals who have
been transnationally repressed in the U.S. by Iran and by
Russia, back to those countries. We lose credibility to ask
other countries to protect TNR victims when the U.S. Government
refuses to protect TNR victims.
Three, to the extent we label political interference by
China and the U.S. as transnational repression, then we must
consider Senator Bernie Moreno's meddling in the Colombian
election as transnational repression. We lose credibility when
U.S. officials act like CCP officials.
Four, last year the Trump administration sanctioned a
Brazilian judge who brought insurrectionists to justice,
falsely portraying legitimate accountability as transnational
repression. We lose credibility when U.S. officials pervert TNR
to help political allies.
In September, our credibility will be again tested. Xi
Jinping will visit Washington at President Trump's invitation.
The last time he was in the U.S., thugs associated with the
Chinese consulate in San Francisco beat up anti-Xi protesters.
We must be prepared to defend the right of protest here.
The question is, will we? And I mean, this administration has
deployed security forces to suppress Americans' right to
protest. They're doing it right now outside of Delaney Hall ICE
facility in Newark, New Jersey. If Xi Jinping asked President
Trump to contain or control Chinese, Uyghur, and Tibetan
protesters, will he do that? Or will he be wind at the backs of
those engaged in legitimate dissent? You know, this
administration has deported people for exercising their free
speech rights under the First Amendment and the ICCPR to
criticize the Israeli government. If Xi Jinping, you know,
asked President Trump to deport people, for whatever reason,
back to China, we must make it clear that that is unacceptable,
and we will not do that, and we will not stand for that.
Transnational repression is a human rights violation. All
human beings are entitled to the same rights, no matter where
they live or how they feel about their government. And I thank
the witnesses for being here today. I welcome the insight. I
want to apologize in advance that I think--I don't know if
we'll get to my questions, but we just got word that--I'm on
the Rules Committee--at 2:30 we're taking up the rule. So,
anyway--frustrating--but I want to be here for your testimony.
Thank you. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Representative McGovern appears
in the Appendix.]
Co-chair Smith. Thank you. I want to thank our Ranking
Member. And you know, we do have some disagreements on some
issues; you know, Delaney Hall is in my state, and I have been
closely monitoring everything going on there. There are people
who are credibly accused of rape, child sex trafficking--and I
wrote five laws on human trafficking, including the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act--who are in that facility. And the
federal law enforcement, ICE, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, police have been bitten. They've been kicked,
punched. The level of restraint that they have shown is
incredible. Our governor brought in the state police, and now
the Newark police are there as well. So, you know, there are a
lot of people in that facility. They were claiming that the
food wasn't good. It is good. I just can't believe--you know,
just because somebody said, Oh, this water stinks, doesn't make
it stink. We've got to be very careful. So this isn't the
place, I guess, to debate that.
We are here, united and standing with our friends, both
here as part of the diaspora, as well as people inside of China
who are suffering the cruelty of Xi Jinping each and every day.
I'm barred from going to China. I have tried to go. I've been
put on the list. Global Times named me as an enemy--they also
named Marco Rubio as an enemy, and Jim, you know, so we need to
push back as never before against the monstrous dictatorship of
Xi Jinping. And, again, you, the four witnesses, help bring a
great deal of light and scrutiny as to what to do next
concerning this important issue.
Congressman Subramanyam, do you want to say something?
STATEMENT OF SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM,
A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA
Representative Subramanyam. Thank you so much to my
colleagues on the Commission for all your leadership. I want to
sort of home in on one particular issue when it comes to the
People's Republic of China, and that's the treatment of the
Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. This is a campaign
conducted using digital threats, coercion, and essentially
taking families hostage to enforce silence here in the United
States, and co-opting countries to detain exiles. I've heard
stories firsthand from the Uyghur population in my district. I
hosted a town hall with members of the Uyghur community last
year, and the top concern they brought up was transnational
repression.
Here's some of what I heard. You know, one quote from
someone who wanted to remain anonymous was, ``Our families do
not face abstract threats, but we are enduring active,
multilayered, state-sponsored transnational repression by the
Chinese Communist Party right now.'' One Virginian, who many
here may know, Rushan Abbas, spoke publicly about the mass
internment camp system back in 2018, and within a week, her
sister Gulshan was abducted by the Chinese government. She was
subjected to a secret trial and then sentenced to 20 years in
prison without any due process. On June 12th, she will be
turning 64, and this is her eighth birthday in a row spent in
jail.
Another constituent of mine shared how the Chinese
government has also blocked communication between Uyghurs
abroad and their relatives in China, and used families as
leverage to prevent Uyghurs from speaking out. He said, ``My
family and I have not been able to speak with our loved ones
back home for 10 years. We still do not know what happened to
them. We've been trying to get information through multiple
channels, but we have not been able to communicate. My wife,
who is a U.S. citizen, only learned about her aunt's death in
China nearly a year after it happened. And my daughter even
asked if we have any relatives at all, because she can't speak
to them.''
It makes people crazy. It makes people sad. It's a terrible
situation. And I could keep going. We have story after story of
transnational repression, the silencing of American citizens
because of what's going on in the Uyghur communities in China.
And we will continue to speak out about this. We will not be
silent. And we will certainly give those folks a voice. So
thank you, and I yield back.
Co-chair Smith. Before we go to our witnesses, I did want
to announce--you probably all already know this--that the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China today released a
new report on the PRC's transnational repression and malign
influence. The report documents in highly disturbing detail how
the Chinese Communist Party continues to extend its long arm
beyond the Chinese borders. The report is available today. I do
hope people will read it, use it, hopefully effectively. I want
to especially thank Deanna Pelsang, Andrew Hartnett, and Rita
Cheng, as well as our Chief of Staff Scott Flipse, for this
important report.
Now I'll go to our witnesses, beginning first with Stephen
Cox, counsel to the Governor of Alaska. Mr. Cox has served as
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and in senior
roles at the Department of Justice. In Alaska, his work is
focused on public safety, consumer protection, and PRC-related
risks, including illegal imports, counterfeit products, and
technology threats. We are grateful for his perspective on how
state law enforcement officials can better respond to the
threats from foreign adversaries.
Let me say, Mr. Cox, you have a great Senator from Alaska.
We do thank him for his leadership. We have worked together on
many Chinese bills, including the FISH Act, which, amazingly,
he got through the Senate. There have been several hearings,
and he chaired the last one several months ago, on how the
Chinese government has taken over fish. Half of all the
calamari in the world is coming from forced labor with Chinese
boats. I mean, it's a despicable thing. He has gotten passed a
comprehensive human rights and real pro-trade bill called the
FISH Act, and now we're looking to get it out on the House
floor, his bill, ASAP. So I want to thank the Senator for that.
We'll then hear from Nebraska State Senator Eliot Bostar.
Senator Bostar has introduced many bills in Nebraska to protect
his state from foreign adversary threats, positioning Nebraska
as a national leader in state-level security policy. One such
bill, LB 644, was passed in June 2025. That legislation
included the Crush Transnational Repression in Nebraska Act,
another bipartisan provision to protect Nebraskans from malign
influence from foreign countries. The federal government has a
vital role to play, but states are on the front line as well,
of this China challenge. And we look forward to hearing from
him the lessons that Nebraska may offer to all of our states on
how to combat this.
Our third witness is Arthur Liu, an attorney from the San
Francisco Bay area and a longtime advocate for democracy and
human rights in China. Mr. Liu was a student activist during
the 1989 pro-democracy movement. He came to the United States
as a political refugee after the June 4th massacre. He has
continued his advocacy here, including outside PRC diplomatic
facilities. His story shows the reach of transnational
repression. Mr. Liu and his amazing daughter, Olympic gold
medalist Alysa Liu, were targeted by PRC spying back in 2022 at
the Winter Olympics. No family in America should live under
intimidation from a foreign dictatorship. On the anniversary of
Tiananmen Square, and in great recognition for the
achievement--I mean, my wife and I watched her performances--
they were amazing. And she got the gold medal, so that's
fantastic.
Our final witness is Anna Kwok, a Hong Kong organizer and
policy analyst based here in Washington. Anna serves as a board
chair of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, where she supports
Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement in the United States. She
has testified before this Commission before, has provided vital
testimony about human rights conditions in Hong Kong. And, of
course, we got passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy
Act, written by this guy over here, [Scott Flipse] our chief of
staff. It is law. And Anna has been just amazing in what she
has done there.
After Beijing imposed the so-called national security law
on Hong Kong, Anna continued her advocacy publicly, despite
serious risk. Hong Kong authorities later issued an arrest
warrant and a bounty against her. Her father was imprisoned as
retaliation for her work. The Chinese Communist Party wants
brave men and women like Anna to believe there is no safe place
to speak the truth, not even in the United States. She is the
polar opposite of that, because she speaks the truth and does
so with great grace and courage.
We thank all of our witnesses. I now yield to Mr. Cox.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN J. COX,
COUNSEL TO THE GOVERNOR, STATE OF ALASKA
Mr. Cox. Co-chair Smith and members of the Commission, I
want to thank you for inviting me to testify today. Thanks in
particular to Senator Sullivan for inviting me. I know he
couldn't make it today, but I want to thank the Commission for
all the work that you have been doing over the last 25 years. I
appreciate the opportunity to contribute to your good work,
especially today on June 4th, the 37th anniversary of Tiananmen
Square. As for me, I stand with the Tank Man.
My own interest in the broader China threat, particularly
the threat that it poses to Americans here at home, goes back
almost 20 years. When I served in the Bush administration at
the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, I worked
for the director. We encountered PRC gamesmanship surrounding
removals and repatriation. And we realized that we were not
just dealing with an immigration problem. It was an
intelligence problem.
During the first Trump administration, I served at the
Department of Justice under Attorney General Jeff Sessions and
Attorney General Bill Barr. And they carried on the China
initiative. And they recognized, we recognized, that the PRC
challenge touched nearly every dimension of American life,
especially IP theft and commercial espionage. And most
recently, when I served as Alaska's 28th attorney general, I
stood up a counter-China initiative to examine how we could
respond, using our own consumer protection authorities. That
work continues in my new capacity as counsel to the Governor.
To my mind, for the first time, consumers are on the front
lines of our geopolitical conflict with China. When I say
consumers, I'm not just talking about families and individuals.
I'm talking about businesses and governments as well. Virtually
all of us and our connected technology that we use can become
an access point. That is where state attorneys general can play
an important role. Consumer protection laws allow us to pursue
deception and undisclosed risks, areas where foreign influence
often hides in plain sight. Alaska's consumer protection laws
are among the strongest in the
nation.
We're actively looking for opportunities to use those
authorities both on our own and in partnership with attorneys
general from around the country, including my co-panelist's
attorney general from Nebraska, Mike Hilgers. Attorney General
Hilgers, if I can just indulge a little bit, has been a
national leader in this space using traditional consumer
protection authorities to address risks involving Chinese-
linked technologies that are sold to American consumers. These
efforts and others demonstrate that traditional state
authorities can play an important role in protecting Americans
from risks that often have a national security dimension.
Another area of concern, and the focus of today's hearing,
of course, is transnational repression. We have not seen
significant reported incidents in Alaska to date, but I would
caution that this is not the sort of threat that is easy to
identify without training and awareness. It may look like
harassment or intimidation, unusual pressure on students,
deepfakes, or threats directed at relatives overseas, but if
law enforcement does not know what to look for, it can be
happening right under our noses. That is why I strongly support
efforts to educate state and local law enforcement on this
threat, to train personnel to recognize it, and to coordinate
closely with our federal authorities and federal partners when
these situations arise.
Looking ahead, I believe the next frontier will involve
closer coordination between attorneys general and
administrative enforcement agencies, too. One area that has
drawn my particular attention involves cross-border payment
platforms and money transmitters operating inside the United
States. I want to give kudos to Senator Tom Cotton on this
Commission, who deserves a lot of credit for publicly raising
concerns about Airwallex with the U.S. Department of Justice,
and the potential exposure of sensitive American financial data
to CCP influence or access.
I share those concerns about Airwallex and this industry
more broadly, and I have begun to have conversations in Alaska
about whether our state licensing and regulatory authorities
should take a harder look at money transmitters that are
connected to foreign adversary governments. A money transmitter
license is a privilege. It's not a right. And I believe state
regulators should be asking whether companies entrusted with
sensitive financial information can satisfy their state law
obligations when data, operations, and key personnel may be
subject to foreign adversary influence.
States do not need to, and we shouldn't, conduct foreign
policy to play an important role here. But states can protect
consumers. States can safeguard critical infrastructure. States
can ensure that Americans are not unknowingly exposed to
foreign adversary leverage. That mission resonates particularly
strongly in a state like Alaska. Alaskans have an express
constitutional right to privacy, and we take that right very
seriously. If Alaskans are paying a premium for products and
services, and we are, they deserve to know what they are
getting and what risks may come with it. We are also America's
Arctic state and a Pacific state. We sit at the intersection of
strategic cargo, telecom, critical minerals, ports, fisheries,
and Arctic logistics. As a result, many of the threats that we
might be discussing today are not abstract for us.
So my message is simple. Many of the Chinese Communist
Party's threats to Americans increasingly manifest themselves
through areas traditionally governed by states--public safety,
consumer protection, licensing, and infrastructure. And because
of that, states have both the authority and the responsibility
to act carefully and lawfully and strategically, alongside our
federal partners. Thank you again for having me, and I welcome
any questions.
[The prepared statement of Stephen Cox appears in the
Appendix.]
Co-chair Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Cox, for your
testimony and insight. I'd like to now yield to Senator Bostar.
STATEMENT OF ELIOT BOSTAR,
NEBRASKA STATE SENATOR
Mr. Bostar. Co-chair Smith and honorable members of the
Commission, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Over the last four years, the Nebraska legislature has passed a
slate of laws designed to protect Nebraskans from transnational
repression, safeguard Nebraska's data and critical
infrastructure, combat malign influence operations, and enhance
resilience to prepare for conflict. Nebraska is home to the
U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, as well as
numerous nuclear missile installations, that make it a target
for foreign adversaries. However, every state has critical
industries, infrastructure, and institutions that our
national security relies on.
The People's Republic of China is a threat to every state
and every community in our country. Our work to address the
threats facing Nebraska from the PRC began when we were alerted
to Pentagon concerns about the pervasiveness of Huawei
technology near our critical defense infrastructure. In 2020,
the U.S. Government took formal action to designate Huawei
technologies as a threat to national security, but Huawei
technology was still in use and being newly installed
throughout Nebraska years later.
In 2023, we drafted legislation to prohibit
telecommunications companies from receiving state funds if they
use or provide communications equipment deemed a national
security threat. Additionally, telecom companies must annually
certify that they don't use equipment designated as a threat by
the FCC. The law also clears redtape obstacles to enhance
security by stipulating that no additional permits or
authorization from any state agency or local government will be
required to remove prohibited equipment.
Robust lobbying pressure was employed to keep Beijing-
linked technologies in use, but elected officials from both
parties ultimately rejected this pressure. After this law
passed, my office was inundated with threat information from
national security professionals who encouraged us to push
forward. And we passed several more laws in 2024 to protect
Nebraska against foreign adversaries. The Foreign-Owned Real
Estate National Security Act prevents any person, foreign
government, or entity determined to be a foreign adversary from
holding land within 10 miles of a military installation,
including nuclear missile silos. In cases of noncompliance, the
law provides the Nebraska attorney general with authority to
force divestment.
The Pacific Conflict Stress Test Act created a joint
legislative and executive committee on Pacific conflict to
assess how a conflict in the Pacific could disrupt and endanger
Nebraska. The committee meets quarterly to evaluate the state's
supply chains, export markets, critical infrastructure, and
security apparatus, and makes recommendations to strengthen
resilience.
Last, in 2024 we passed the Foreign Adversary Contracting
Prohibition Act. The legislation prohibits companies controlled
by foreign adversaries from procurement contracts involving
communications technology, network systems, and critical
infrastructure.
As we worked to pass these laws, we learned about local
government officials being contacted by the CCP, and we started
to hear from victims of transnational repression. Reporting
emerged regarding an alleged Chinese overseas service station
operating in Omaha, highlighting the threat of intelligence
activity and transnational repression within Nebraska. We
sought to limit the CCP's ability to influence, manipulate, and
hurt people in our state by introducing the Foreign Adversary
and Terrorist Agent Registration Act and the Crush
Transnational Repression in Nebraska Act in 2025.
The Registration Act illuminates political propaganda and
influence activities conducted by agents of foreign adversaries
by requiring that they register with the Nebraska attorney
general. Any informational material they distribute must be
notated with a conspicuous statement identifying it as such and
be submitted to the attorney general within 48 hours. The
legislation also stipulates that if an individual or entity is
representing a principal designated by the Pentagon as a
Chinese military company, they must begin all lobbying
activities by disclosing that they are representing such a
company that is a foreign adversary of the United States.
Violation of this provision results in a $100,000 fine, which
increases by $100,000 for each subsequent violation, up to a
maximum fine of $1 million per violation. Any individual who
provides information leading to a penalty under this act is
entitled to receive a $50,000 reward from the state.
The Crush Transnational Repression in Nebraska Act defines
covered offenses as specific crimes already existing in law
that will now receive an enhanced charge if the person
committing the offense is an agent of a foreign principal. This
legislation also punishes unauthorized foreign law enforcement
by establishing that an agent of a foreign adversary commits a
felony by deliberately trying to enforce a foreign government's
law or rule in Nebraska.
Our final 2025 reform conformed with what Congress
accomplished with the BIOSECURE Act and the most recent
National Defense Authorization Act. Our genetic protection law
establishes that no medical or research facility shall use any
genetic sequencer or software for genetic sequencing if such
device or software is produced in or by a foreign adversary.
Chinese companies sanctioned by the Pentagon have developed
some of the world's largest gene banks for the Chinese
military, supporting potential genetically targeted bioweapons,
about which senior Chinese military officials have written.
This law takes every measure possible to cut off Chinese
military companies from accessing the genetic data of
Nebraskans, complementing the federal BIOSECURE Act.
Just this spring, we enacted a new and unique protection
for critical infrastructure focused on denying foreign
adversary companies access that could be used for operational
control or sabotage, either in person or remotely. Furthermore,
we codified new enhanced penalties for crimes that we define as
bioterrorism, including bringing in different pathogens for the
purpose of damaging our farmlands.
Although each of these pieces of legislation faced
opposition, we were able to pass them into law with bipartisan
support. The effects are already visible. Awareness among state
and local officials has increased significantly. Procurement
standards have hardened, infrastructure protections have
expanded, law enforcement coordination has improved, and
Nebraska now evaluates infrastructure and investment questions
through a national security framework that simply did not exist
several years ago. Other states are emulating these models.
Congressional leaders, executive agencies, and even other
nations, such as the United Kingdom, have learned from
different facets of what Nebraska has achieved.
Most importantly, Nebraska's leadership in combating malign
foreign influence has demonstrated that states have power and
responsibility in this space. In fact, both President Biden and
President Trump have called upon states to lead in driving
solutions where we are closest to the security risks. We know
our adversaries are coordinated and adept at attacking us at
every layer of government. We must be able to defend ourselves
utilizing this same whole-of-government approach. We must
strengthen coordination between the states themselves, and
between the states and the federal government. Our work in
Nebraska has been made possible with guidance from national
security experts and practitioners. More established and
formalized systems of coordination will help us further
identify vulnerabilities, protect critical assets, and
contribute fully and comprehensively to the defense of the
American homeland. Thank you again for this opportunity to
testify. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Eliot Bostar appears in the
Appendix.]
Co-chair Smith. Senator, thank you for your leadership.
Thank you for what you are doing in leading the country. I hope
that
everybody follows suit. There are some states, like Texas, like
Utah, Georgia, but far too few. So thank you for that
leadership.
STATEMENT OF ARTHUR LIU,
OWNER, INTER-PACIFIC LAW GROUP
Mr. Liu. Good afternoon, Co-chair Smith and distinguished
members of the Commission. Thank you for inviting me to testify
here today. My name is Arthur Liu. I came to the United States
as a political refugee back in 1989, after the Tiananmen Square
massacre. I'm also the proud father of Olympic gold medalist
Alysa Liu, and four other wonderful children.
Today is an especially sad day for me. Thirty-seven years
ago, on June 4th, 1989, the Chinese government sent tanks and
soldiers to kill students and civilians in Tiananmen Square,
and also in Beijing. At that time, thousands of students and
civilians just gathered peacefully to call for democracy,
freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the rule of law, and
for basic human rights in China. Thousands of them lost their
lives, and hundreds more were
severely injured. At that time, I was in Guangzhou, attending
graduate school at Zhongshan University. I was one of the
principal organizers of the democracy movement in Guangzhou,
China.
When news of the massacre reached Guangzhou, I was
devastated. I could not understand and believe how a government
that claimed to serve the people could turn its weapons against
its own young people and civilians. In response, I organized
more protests in Guangzhou against the massacre. Of course,
soon afterwards I became one of the most wanted democracy
activists in southern China. I was very fortunate to be able to
escape from China to Hong Kong. After I came to America, I
continued to organize protests in front of the Chinese
consulate in San Francisco and also in front of the Chinese
Embassy in Washington, D.C., calling upon the Chinese
government to release political and religious prisoners in
China. I have spoken publicly many times about the human rights
abuses in China.
Like many refugees, I believed that once I arrived in
America I had left political persecution behind me. But an
incident in late 2021 proved me wrong. To explain what
happened, I must tell you a little bit about my daughter, Alysa
Liu. Alysa recently won two gold medals for the United States
of America at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Before that, she
became the youngest U.S. women's champion in history when she
won the U.S. Figure Skating Championship at the ages of 13 and
14. She set records as the youngest female skater in history to
ever land a triple Axel in international competition at the age
of 12. And she was the first female skater in history to have
landed a triple Axel and a quadruple jump in the same
competition program. In 2021, it was clear that she was on her
way to represent the United States of America in the 2022
Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
Alysa posted a piece of news about the human rights
violations in Xinjiang back in 2018, when she was only 12-13
years old. And I guess the Chinese government never forgot
about that. And since she was most likely going to Beijing for
the Olympic Games, I may also be going as well, so they were
concerned. One day in late October or early November in 2021, I
received a phone call. The caller identified himself as an
official from the U.S. Olympic Committee. He told me that he
was conducting international travel preparedness and needed my
passport and Alysa's passport. He gave me a fax number for me
to fax our passports to him. I told him I would do it the next
day.
I never did. I was smarter than that. But later on I got a
phone call. Just a few days later, I got a phone call from the
FBI. And he told me he needed to meet with me. And I met him at
a Starbucks. And he told me that a Chinese spy, acting on
behalf of the Chinese government, was already in the San
Francisco Bay area. That was in early November 2021. He would
be tracking my movements. He would be surveilling my daily
activities. He would be placing a GPS tracker on my car. And he
would try to collect our personal information, like Social
Security numbers, and particularly our passport information.
The FBI told me to watch out for my surroundings and be
careful.
I was very worried when I heard the news, because Alysa was
most likely going to Beijing. And I was also concerned that the
spy might do something to her in the United States. At that
time, Alysa was competing in Japan. So the next day, when she
came back to America, I took her away from the San Francisco
Bay area to another location for training. As we were boarding
the plane I received a phone call from the FBI. He told me that
the spy was right on his way to our house. I couldn't believe
it. It was like a scene right out of a movie. It could not have
been so coincidental that we were boarding the plane and the
spy was right on his way to our house.
The FBI agent informed me that they were ready to arrest
those spies acting on behalf of the Chinese government at that
time, but as a father I was terrified for the safety of Alysa
when she goes to Beijing to compete for the United States of
America. So I told them, can you please wait until she comes
back from the Olympic Games? And the FBI said yes. I also
requested additional security for Alysa. When she was in
Beijing she was accompanied at all times by two adults, from
venue to venue throughout the Olympic Games. On March 16th,
2022, the Department of Justice announced criminal charges
against the spies. One of them was
Matthew Ziburis, the guy who called me posing as an official
from the U.S. Olympic Committee, and who spied on me in the San
Francisco Bay area.
When the news came out, a neighbor from my office came over
and told me that he had seen this guy, Matthew Ziburis, many
times. He was lingering in the lobby right in front of my
office. And of course, Matthew Ziburis was charged, along with,
I believe, four other people in the spying on me and also on
another dissident from China, and an artist in Los Angeles. I'm
really grateful to the FBI agents who provided security for me
and also my daughter. And I appreciate that the U.S. Government
took forceful action to prosecute those spies to the fullest
extent under the law.
But America cannot stop there. We can't just prosecute
them. We must understand that not just me, a political
dissident from China, the Uyghurs, or the people from Hong
Kong, we have to understand we will not be safe--America will
not be safe--until China becomes a democracy. We must
understand China must have a government which respects basic
human rights and that honors the rule of law. We must also
understand that America will not be safe until people all over
the world can live peacefully and harmoniously together. We
have a lot of work to do in America. Thank you for inviting me
to testify here today. I look forward to answering your
questions.
Co-chair Smith. Mr. Liu, thank you for your testimony, your
courage, and again, congratulations on such a fine performance
by your daughter. To think that something that she wrote when
she was very young would still be in the hands of the Chinese
Communist Party to intimidate and threaten, again underscores
the pervasiveness of this dictatorship. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Arthur Liu appears in the
Appendix.]
Anna Kwok.
STATEMENT OF ANNA KWOK,
BOARD DIRECTOR AND FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
HONG KONG DEMOCRACY COUNCIL
Ms. Kwok. Members of the Commission, thank you for inviting
me to share my experience as a target of intensifying
transnational repression in the United States. In this battle
against the Chinese Communist Party, a regime that fears
opposition, feeling safe is a privilege. I am among hundreds of
thousands of rights defenders in America who live every single
day knowing we're being watched and threatened. All incidents
of transnational repression I share today took place on
American soil. Together, they illustrate the varied tactics of
a transnational repression campaign.
I served as the executive director of the Hong Kong
Democracy Council, a U.S. advocacy organization sanctioned by
the PRC. In May 2023, after I testified before this very
Commission on the loss of Hong Kong's political autonomy and
its implications for the U.S., the regime swiftly retaliated by
issuing a HK$1 million bounty on my head. My assets were frozen
and my passport was revoked, crippling my international
advocacy work. More bounties were also later issued on American
citizens and residents.
The bounty put a huge target on my back. State media, pro-
CCP extremists, and individual propagandists launched a
coordinated campaign to discourage the American public from
associating with me. Explicit threats to hurt, kidnap, rape,
and even execute me on American soil flooded my social media.
The lawfare and digital threats became physical in November
2023, during Chinese leader Xi Jinping's visit to the United
States. When I organized protests against Xi and campaigned
successfully to bar the sanctioned chief executive of Hong Kong
from entering the country, the regime decided to retaliate on
the streets of San Francisco.
Masked men assaulted fellow protesters with metal poles,
while WeChat groups circulated my whereabouts on the streets of
San Francisco. I escaped physical harm only because fellow
protesters protected me. Local police were completely oblivious
to the existence of transnational repression and refused to
intervene. To this day, none of the perpetrators, including
American nationals, have been convicted. For the first time I
felt as if I had been transported back to the lawless streets
of Hong Kong; even though I was in the land of the free, I was
not free.
The online campaign and real-life violence achieved a
chilling effect across America. Some supporters of the pro-
democracy movement stopped showing up to events. A few went as
far as to erase their digital footprints. Their response is all
too familiar. It happened once in my first home in Hong Kong,
and it is now happening again in my second home in America.
Nonetheless, I
refused to back down. I led a campaign to expose the foreign
influence and transnational threats brought by the Hong Kong
Economic and Trade Offices. In response, the regime unleashed
its cruelest weapon, psychological warfare.
Last May the regime arrested my father in Hong Kong. He was
later convicted on fabricated charges. The state-run trial
centered on an insurance policy my father had purchased when I
was just a 2-year-old learning to say ``papa.'' My father is
imprisoned simply because he is my father. He's now a hostage
serving a sentence for crimes neither of us committed. The CCP
weaponized my love for my family in an attempt to silence me
forever. I speak to you today as my 70-year-old father sits in
a cell 8,000 miles away. I speak as someone with a HK$1 million
bounty on my head. I speak as a target of rampant transnational
repression, and I speak as someone who is standing my ground to
combat an urgent threat to American national security.
When a hostile foreign power launches centralized efforts--
spanning state agencies, united front groups, and individual
extremists--to silence people inside the U.S., the government
must respond with centralized, coordinated mechanisms. That's
why I urge Congress, in particular the House Foreign Affairs
Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to mark up
the bipartisan Transnational Repression Policy Act immediately.
Passing this legislation will provide a bedrock for building
long-term cross-agency mechanisms that are necessary to protect
America.
This is a litmus test for the country. If the U.S. does not
draw a hard line and act quickly, the PRC will continue to push
our boundaries, from running secret police stations to co-
opting state officials. States like Nebraska and Utah are
gearing up to protect their people, and the nation should get
ahead, too. We must confront the threat of transnational
repression urgently, before it becomes a normalized pattern
that cannot be undone. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Anna Kwok appears in the
Appendix.]
----------
Co-chair Smith. Anna, thank you very much for your bravery
and testimony, bearing witness to an ugly truth that you are
facing every day. You did say the word ``intensifying,''
clearly denoting or conveying that it's getting worse. You
know, Xi Jinping will be coming here again soon. We tried very
hard when he came last time for the APEC summit, and it was,
like--and when you say the local police were oblivious to what
was actually happening on the ground, that's got to change, and
a federal law could help that. The state laws obviously help
it, with your own state police and other law enforcement
assets, but it seems to me that we--I'm sure you will agree, we
need a federal law.
I have asked Chairman Mast to mark up the bill. I thought
it might be up at our last markup, which just occurred, and it
was not on there. I argued--as it turned out, not
persuasively--to do so. So I'm taking all of your testimony
back to the Chairman--and he's a good man, Chairman Mast--and
his staff, and say, This has got to happen. It's got to happen
now. The sooner it happens the better, especially--and we saw
it in San Francisco, the way so many people--I had hearings
then, and had press conferences, as you know, pointing out how
brutal the people were, some of them seemingly coming out of
the trade mission there. I have a bill that would close that
thing down, but that too passed the House, never got through
the Senate. Here we go again with that reprise. So we need this
bill. I'm sure you all agree with that, so we will push really,
really hard. It's got to be done before Xi Jinping comes again,
because that will be the pivot catalyst for them to unleash
hell on the best and the bravest and the brightest who have
come here from China. And many of those, obviously, are still
in China, their family members.
You did say, Mr. Bostar, that with regard to the
legislation, Senator, that there was some opposition. It's
faced opposition. Who was against what you guys were doing?
Mr. Bostar. Thank you, sir, for the question. We've faced
opposition from a number of sources, but what tends to be
utilized the most in Nebraska is primarily corporate-aligned
opposition, linked to Chinese interests and corporations. And I
think fundamentally that's mostly the case because they have
the most robust lobbying presence in the state. We see that
consistently, businesses themselves that are linked to China as
well as the associations that they belong to, consistently
trying to fight progress when it comes to guarding against CCP
threats.
One example I'll use and give you that was sort of shocking
at the time--Nebraska is, obviously, a pretty significant
agricultural state. When we were attempting to pass our foreign
adversary registration requirements into law, we received
thinly veiled threats from Smithfield, which is owned by the
Chinese now, that if we went through with this and passed these
bills that there was the potential that they could shut down
operations, disrupting the economy of Nebraska certainly, as
well as the food supply for the United States. So that's just
one example that we faced, but we faced many.
Co-chair Smith. Thank you for persevering. You know, I
would just--back in 1994 I was one of those who led the effort
to link most favored nation status with trade to China. Bill
Clinton, sadly, de-linked human rights and trade on May 26,
1994. But on one trip to Beijing I met with the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, and I couldn't believe how kowtowing they were to the
Chinese dictatorship to get the next deal.
That goes for Microsoft and Bill Gates and all these other
people who--anything to get the next deal and to continue
their--we had Enes Freedom testify here, and talked about how
the NBA just threw him out because he spoke about the Uyghurs.
Again, another brave man--a great basketball player, but a
brave man. And he lost it all. He lost his whole career. And he
says some of his fellow NBAers wanted to support him, but they
said, we can't. We don't want to lose, you know, that NBA slot
that we have. And so it's--you know, it's amazing how corporate
America just capitulates so easily under the false impression
that somehow China will matriculate from a dictatorship to a
democracy if we just trade more. No. They'll become a more
aggressive power with more capability, command and control,
right on down the line, if we give them all that capacity,
which they've gotten.
You know, Chris Cox, you all recall, the former Member of
Congress, did an amazing report back in the 1990s about how all
the dual-use items that they were procuring that had a--
ostensibly a civilian purpose, but also a very serious military
purpose. So thank you for persevering against all of that
pressure. But we've got to get a federal law and get more
states to do the same with their laws, and to resist that
pressure because it has been shameful how the almighty buck
has--you know, you hold a dollar in front of some of these
corporations--I had people that were part of the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce in Beijing telling me they have full religious
freedom here. I said, really? If you believe that, I'll sell
you the Brooklyn Bridge. It just does not happen. Thank you for
doing that.
You know, you did say, Mr. Cox, about--suggested that the
central point is that consumers are on the front lines of the
geopolitical conflict with China--phones, apps, routers,
cameras, payment platforms, cloud services, and connected
services can become access points for PRC-linked data
collection and leverage. Doesn't McAfee, and some of the things
that we all buy--I have McAfee--does that not protect against
that? Or are we being naive and somehow they could easily
pierce that and get whatever they want?
Mr. Cox. Thank you for the question. I wouldn't purport to
be an expert on that kind of a question, but I will say that I
do think that the Chinese are technologically very advanced.
And a lot of times our defenses are just keeping up with the
black hats. So I think it's right to be concerned. I think this
is why I think state AGs, like Attorney General Hilgers, and
Attorney General Paxton, and Attorney General Uthmeier have
teamed up to target some of these consumer protection
violations, where this technology has potential kill switches
and back doors that allow information that belongs to American
citizens to go back to China. And we know that China has
certain laws, like the National Intelligence Law of 2017, that
require, with severe penalties, cooperation by Chinese
companies and individuals to cooperate with intelligence
services like that, on command. And so I think it's right to
look into this, to investigate, and to bring righteous cases.
And we intend to do that in Alaska.
Co-chair Smith. Are we deploying a sufficient number of
federal assets, FBI for example, to combat this? Or do we need
to beef this up significantly?
Mr. Cox. I'll take that. Thank you for the question. I
can't--I've worked with the FBI over the course of my career. I
worked on the Fort Hood Commission with Judge Webster. I've
worked for five state and federal law enforcement agencies over
the course of my career. And I've never known a law enforcement
agency to refuse more resources and more investigative
resources. So, though I can't speak for the FBI, I suspect that
they would love to do more with more resources.
Co-chair Smith. Yes, Anna.
Ms. Kwok. I would agree with Mr. Cox there, that the FBI
definitely would appreciate more resources. And in my previous
experience from working with the FBI, I've also noticed that
there have not been enough resources being put into
investigating the foreign influence and transnational
repression into the United States. And often civil society has
to also help share reports and research results with the FBI,
just because they do not have adequate time or resources to
conduct their own research. But of course, there is certain
information or intelligence that we're not able to get from
civil society. So if the FBI would be able to dedicate more
resources into investigating transnational repression and
foreign influence, I'm sure it will help protect American
national security.
Co-chair Smith. Let me just ask you, if I could, about AI,
which is transforming, seemingly, everything. What additional
threat does that pose? Just--this was not related to the
Chinese, as far as we know--but just yesterday my top sheriff
told me how some boys took pictures of two girls, 14 years old,
13 years old, and then created a whole sex scenario with them.
You know, it was all AI, but it's devastating. They found the
kids, the two boys, and they arrested them, and they'll be
prosecuted. I know in Europe and elsewhere that's being done
now to diaspora and human rights advocates. Again, another
devastating way of trying to demoralize and hurt people who
speak out. How bad is that right now? And do you see that
getting worse?
Ms. Kwok. The CCP definitely uses artificial intelligence
to further repression on diasporas around the world and rights
defenders. For example, my fellow activists, Carmen Lau in the
UK, and Laura Harth, they are both being targeted with
deepfakes generated by AI, and with explicit images and videos
that are used to defame them. And I think that is a very
devastating development, especially for women defenders in this
space.
At the same time, we are also seeing more impersonation
attempts getting more sophisticated to try to conduct phishing,
identity theft, and to procure information from the human
rights community. For example, my colleagues would often now
receive emails impersonating myself with very sophisticated
methods that sound like me and write like me, in order to get
more information.
And, last but not least, we're also seeing the rise of AI
being used to generate propaganda materials on social media.
With the use of AI, the CCP is able to now generate more
materials that are dedicated to talking to the American public,
to get into the rhetoric, and to form better narratives, or
more effective narratives, in bringing false information to the
United States.
Co-chair Smith. Yesterday Marco Rubio testified before the
Foreign Affairs Committee. And I asked him--we don't get much
time. As you know, you get five minutes. I asked him about
Jimmy Lai, I asked him a few other questions, and I did so--
even more so privately. I asked him to help us get the Stop
Forced Organ Harvesting Act passed. It passed 406 to 1 in the
House last year. It passed in the Congress before that. You
know, it's my bill. It's one of the most serious human rights
abuses imaginable, and it's being done--it's hiding in plain
sight. We just can't seem to get it out of the Senate, but
we're trying, and we're hopeful.
But if Marco were sitting here, and he used to sit right
here. He co-chaired this Commission and did so--like the
current Senator from Alaska--with great distinction. And I mean
that. You know, we've got a great co-chair here. He brings an
intel capacity and an understanding of Taiwan and elsewhere
like no other that I know. He is just amazing, and he would
have wanted to be here, but he just couldn't make it, but he
sends his best. But what would you tell the President and Marco
Rubio, again, on the eve of what will be another summit soon,
and this is when the planning goes into it to try to make sure
that everything we can do to mitigate Xi Jinping's cruelty is
tried. What would you say to the President and to Marco?
Mr. Cox. Thank you for the question. I'll say this, and
this is a point that I think you have made at this hearing and
others. There are certainly things that the states can do, but
nothing speaks more loudly than federal action. And that can
mean executive action, and it can mean legislative action. You
know, the awareness about Huawei and the telecom threat
increased a lot based on what was done with Huawei. The
prosecution of the spies that targeted Mr. Liu, that increases
awareness. Legislation that would also arm state and local law
enforcement with the training and capabilities to spot the
transnational repression behind some of these otherwise
ordinary crimes would be very helpful. And all of that is
federal.
Mr. Liu. Thank you for that question, Mr. Smith. You know,
I would tell President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio that
the United States must take a tougher stand against the CCP's
transnational repression and also against their human rights
violations. I would call upon them to urge the Chinese
government to release all political prisoners, including Mr.
Bingzhang Wang. He has been in prison in China for over 20
years. And I would urge Mr. Rubio and President Trump to call
for the release of Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners in
Hong Kong. And really push them to come to the international
stage as a civil society, as a government which respects basic
human rights and the rule of law. I think this is another
opportunity--to be honest with you, without any political
prisoners released with President Trump's visit in China--to
bring those major issues up in the next visit. Thank you.
Co-chair Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Kwok. First, I would like to thank Secretary Rubio and
President Trump for commemorating June 4th in Hong Kong.
Because today we saw that the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong
lighted candles in a place where vigils are no longer allowed.
And for
Hong Kong, currently we have 1,946 political prisoners. I want
to
urge President Trump to seriously consider calling for the
release
of Jimmy Lai, Chow Hang-tung, and other Hong Kong political
prisoners.
At the same time, the upcoming visit, where Xi would be
visiting D.C., it would be the perfect opportunity to establish
better TNR response. The last time Xi was in the United States,
we have seen how it really opened up the devastating can of
transnational repression. And once they widened the scope and
widened the possibility of transnational repression, it was
hard to push back. This would be the perfect opportunity for
the United States to push back, to set, actually, better
protocols for foreign visits, for diplomats who will be on the
scene, and for Chinese nationals here in the United States, on
how to behave, how to respect human rights, and how not to
conduct transnational repression against people here on
American soil.
Co-chair Smith. Let me just ask you what your view might be
of what people inside of China understand, especially today,
being the remembrance of the Tiananmen Square massacre. I've
met with many students who come visiting, including at the high
school level, who say the Tiananmen Square massacre never
happened. If you Google over there, and I went to one of their
internet cafes once and googled ``Tiananmen Square massacre''
and got nothing. I googled ``human rights'' and I got
everything about--it was during the Bush administration--how
bad he was, but nothing about there. And I even put in
``torture,'' because Manfred Nowak, who was then the special
rapporteur for torture for the United Nations, had done a
scathing report about the use of torture in China. So I put his
name in, and it came up with everything but China.
Is there really a serious lack of any kind of information
in this culture of denial that they live in, perpetrated by the
government, that they don't even know this stuff is happening,
or happened, past tense? Because it's just--I met with a group
of high school students at a school in my state who said I was
lying about Tiananmen Square. And then this--as I might have
indicated--Chi Haotian, who was the butcher of Beijing, who
ordered the actual bayoneting and killing, he came to this
country, went down to the Clinton White House. He got a 19-gun
salute, because by then he had been elevated to head of their
Department of Defense, the equivalent of our defense secretary,
got a 19-gun salute. I said he should have been taken to The
Hague for crimes against humanity.
So we did a hearing. He goes to the Army War College and
says nobody died at Tiananmen Square. And all over, you know,
the Global Times, the People's Daily, because I read the
English versions, were extolling how he had said all this. And
I had a hearing two days after he said it. We had all these
witnesses, most of whom were Chinese witnesses, who said it did
happen. The Time magazine correspondent who watched people die.
But he got away with it. You know, Clinton himself should have
said: Hey, pal, a lot of people died at Tiananmen Square.
Quit--you know, don't lie about this, because if you lie about
this, what else are you lying about?
But they did lie. But I'm really concerned that it's as if
it never happened, which is so important. And in Hong Kong, of
course, they crushed the remembrances there, and of course
throughout the rest of China. How do we get that through to the
people as to what has happened in the past and what is
happening today?
Anna.
Ms. Kwok. China, or the Chinese Communist Party, certainly
excels in twisting history and twisting narratives. And right
now, I would say there is currently an ongoing war on
narratives and discourse between the U.S. and democracies
around the world vs. China. Every single day I go on social
media, and I see China spreading misinformation and
disinformation about history, about what has happened, and
especially on June 4th, today. In Hong Kong we are also hearing
rumors that, starting next year, textbooks will no longer be
allowed to mention, you know, even one line on June 4th. As of
now, Hong Kong is not even allowing people to hold candles on
the streets of Hong Kong.
This morning, or last night, we saw news in Hong Kong where
the police were actually stationed on street corners in Hong
Kong, waiting to arrest people who dare to just walk around,
who dared to just express themselves with very creative art,
and who dared to just share symbols of June 4th, no matter how
implicit. So we're seeing that China is really being very harsh
and zoning in on canceling or on erasing any moments of
history, any memories of history. And that reminds me of a
scholar currently in the United States, Rowena He, who
specializes and extensively discusses the importance of
remembering the Tiananmen massacre.
Because it goes beyond just the Tiananmen massacre. It is
about remembering the atrocities of this regime. It is about
remembering the present crimes conducted by this regime. And it
is, most importantly, remembering the people who have been
sacrificing to fight for democracy and human rights in China.
So I urge the United States and the American public to remember
what has happened on June 4th of 1989, but also be cognizant of
what is happening today on American soil. Thank you.
Co-chair Smith. I have one final question. And, again,
thank you for your time, your expertise, and above all your
leadership. The Chinese Students and Scholars Associations and
other PRC-linked campus groups, there's talk of, you know,
further networking with them. We saw it with the Confucius
Centers, which were nothing but soft power instruments by the
Chinese Communist Party. But in 2015 I chaired a hearing with
NYU Chancellor Jeffrey Lehman, and I raised the issue about
complicity with the Chinese propaganda organs--you know, they
were gifted a campus in Shanghai. Imagine that, a whole campus.
And yet they were charging an exorbitant amount of money
for tuition. I asked him, who picks the students, the Chinese
Communist Party? What's the selection process? If you're
online, what can you go and visit? Can you talk about the Dalai
Lama? I don't think so. All those things I asked him. And I
also invited myself to go speak. And I actually got a visa. And
he had me there to speak. And I always appreciated that. But
it's the complicity of many of our institutions of higher
learning to gain access. One of the most infamous of all was
back in the early 1980s when Steven Mosher at Stanford
University, broke the news about the one child per couple
policy and the use of forced abortion, and the fact that the
government decreed brothers and sisters illegal. And that even
with the one, you had to get permission from the Communist
Party to have that baby. Otherwise, you're forcibly aborted.
I did a number of bills that passed in the House, some in
the Senate, to defund any organization, like the U.N.
Population Fund, which was getting a great deal of money, and
Reagan was all for it, and we did just that. Trump has done the
same thing again with the U.N. Population Fund and others. But
meanwhile, Stanford, which is where Steven Mosher was earning
his doctorate, threw him over the side. They threw him out. As
a matter of fact, it was so bad that the Wall Street Journal
did a piece that said, ``Stanford Morality'' and talked about
how he had been disenfranchised from the university because he
broke a story that they didn't want to have to deal with
because they wanted access.
So my question is, Are we seeing any improvement on the
part of our colleges and universities to the mega threat that
the Communist Party poses, how they can be manipulated and
used, you know, the information transfer that is applicable to
their military? You know, at the state level you gentlemen are
doing tremendous work, but we need to do more, seems to me, on
the federal level on all of this as well. But I keep asking our
universities, stop partnering with these individuals. Now, if
they were free, partner away, but they're not. It's a
dictatorship. And again, anything they glean technology-wise is
going right into their military-industrial complex. So if
anybody would want to take a stab at that, on the universities.
Mr. Bostar. Thank you for that. In Nebraska we're certainly
making progress on the university front, as far as attempting
to decouple where we can with those specific programs. But I
think your question brings up a broader challenge that we face
with all of this, which is it's always inconvenient to do what
we need to do. Whether or not universities are being gifted a
new campus, or whether or not Chairman Xi is coming to the
United States, and not wanting to disrupt a possible deal,
there's always a reason why it's the wrong time to do what we
should do. And it's exactly for that purpose that we have to
resist that. We have to take the actions now.
It was never convenient for us in Nebraska to pass the
bills we did, to create the laws we did, to create the
structures of accountability on the CCP, because there are
costs. There are political costs. There are economic costs.
We've allowed ourselves to become so dependent and integrated
on our adversaries that it is painful to do what we need to do
and separate ourselves. But it's required, because there's
never going to be a convenient time to do it. And so, yes, I
think we're making that progress, but there is so much more
that we have to do.
Ms. Kwok. Co-chair Smith, I'm actually an alumnus from New
York University. And I have a story to share. Back in 2019,
during the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, I tried to
organize a protest at NYU in support of people on the streets,
as an anonymous organizer. And initially, we were only
expecting a few dozen Hong Kongers to show up in solidarity,
but in the end hundreds of people showed up. And these hundreds
of people were not supportive of what we did. Instead, they
were students, faculty members, people, members recruited by
the CSSA on campus at New York University.
When they had such an overwhelming number of people, they
encircled us, they started taking photos of us, and, at the
time, even though I was fully anonymous, they tried to identify
me and dox me online, circulating our photos, videos on WeChat
groups to try to find out which student this is, what classes
they were taking, trying to trace where we lived, and things
like that. And very unfortunately, this was not the only time I
encountered a CSSA. In 2023, when I was in San Francisco, as I
talked about before, for the APAC summit, once again CSSA was
mobilized. And this time at the San Francisco protest, many
Chinese nationals were mobilized to support Xi Jinping. And
among all the groups that were on the ground, the CSSA actually
mobilized the majority of them.
They managed to get thousands of Chinese students traveling
to San Francisco from Los Angeles, from other areas of
California to support Xi Jinping, and to show that China is the
kind of leader they wanted, which, of course, we know is a lie.
And even though they were not the most hostile crowd,they
definitely were the largest crowd. And we also found evidence
that the CSSA actually promised paid meals and accommodations,
telling students that they could just go to San Francisco for a
trip, while in reality it was for propaganda. And it was also
for intimidating people like us. So I would say that for higher
institutions the existence of these Chinese Students and
Scholars Associations is definitely a problem.
And the issue that they are still present in the United
States allows the Chinese government plenty of apparatuses for
them to spy on and surveil students in America, including Hong
Kong students in America who are merely trying to express
themselves. So that's why I urge higher institutions to really
reconsider their partnership with the Chinese government and
also reconsider the existence of CSSAs on campus while there
has been plenty of evidence that they are acting as adversaries
of American institutions and the government.
Co-chair Smith. To follow up on those students that flocked
into San Francisco, was there any element of coercion--you
know, to their families back home, you do this or else? Or was
it more that they were ideologically simpatico with the Chinese
Communist Party--naive, perhaps--or what? I mean, or they're
getting a free trip?
Ms. Kwok. Yes. I would say the majority of them actually
are more naive. They're thinking that they're getting a free
trip, it doesn't really matter if they go, they're just
standing there waving flags. That's what we observed the most
from their WeChat groups. But at the same time there were also
definitely ideologues who would go out of their way to really
shout at us on the streets, or try to intimidate us with the
number of people they have. And I think even though they are
naive, as we have said in the earlier remarks, sometimes in the
end you have to pick a side--always, as you said. It's either
with the Tank Man or with the tanks. And I think for them,
being naive doesn't excuse them from the fact that they are
deciding to associate with the tanks.
Mr. Liu. I just want to add that, from a diplomatic point
of view, we must engage the Chinese government, whether it's
higher education in America, or whether it's the government, or
businesses. I strongly encourage them to engage in China, deal
with China. But at the same time we have to take a very strong
position against human rights violations, and for the release
of political prisoners. We can't isolate China. We have to
change China. Thank you.
Co-chair Smith. Could states do more on this?
Mr. Bostar. I think the short answer is yes. Several states
have done a lot. Most states have done something. Some states
have done nothing. But no state has done enough, and so we need
to be more strategic and coordinated with our actions. We often
find ourselves--you know, I talk to my legislative colleagues
from across the country. We spend, frankly, too much time
reinventing the wheel. We need better mechanisms of
coordinating among ourselves, and we also need better
mechanisms of coordinating between the states and the federal
government.
You know, this is a policy area that for too long was left
simply to the federal government. And because of that, and
because it's more novel and it's newer for subnational
political entities to be engaging in this, we don't yet have
the necessary connective tissue to allow for this to be done as
efficiently as possible. And so we need to be deliberate about
developing those relationships and creating those systems and
partnerships to allow us to really do what we have to do and
move forward.
Co-chair Smith. To conclude, I just hope and pray, and want
to let you know, if there's anything we can do--especially Anna
and Arthur--with regard to the ongoing threats that you
receive, maybe as a result of testifying today. And Anna, as
you know, this is not your first time. You are just incredibly
brave; we will do everything we can. So if there's someone, the
FBI, or otherwise, that we need to further alert to all of
this--because again, these people are brutal. They are
absolutely brutal.
I would reiterate my request to the Chinese Communist Party
to allow me to lead a delegation to Xinjiang. I'd love to stop
in Hong Kong as well and visit prisoners there. You know, even
during the worst of the Soviet days, because I've been here
since 1981, Frank Wolf and I--Congressman from Virginia--got
into Perm Camp 35 in the early 1980s, where Sharansky and all
of those great political prisoners were, a thousand miles
outside of Moscow in the Ural Mountains. We talked to the
procurator general at a big human rights conference. He said,
Nothing to hide. We said we wanted to go to the Perm Camp. It
took two years, but we got there. We interviewed every
prisoner, and one by one, we got prisoners out. And then, of
course, the Soviet Union fell, and they all got out.
But in terms of China, the foreign ministry said anybody
who wants to go to Xinjiang can go there. So they were already
attacking my Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act at the embassy
right here in town. Really, all lies, lies. No, the lies are on
your side. But then they also, almost the same week--it was the
same week--said anybody who wants to go there can go. We did a
letter immediately saying, We want to go. We want to go. We've
asked repeatedly. So I'm asking again from the dais here,
knowing that they'll hear this. I want to lead a delegation, I
want it to be bipartisan, to go to Xinjiang, to go to the
camps, to raise these issues, and to do so very, you know,
professionally. Talk to prisoners without any fear of
retaliation, and all of that. So the request is, again,
requested. Because they already said, We have nothing to hide--
anybody can come. And we've been denied.
Thank you. Is there anything you want to add before we
close? I don't want to keep you longer than--your testimony was
outstanding. Helps us to do more. You're helping the cause
mightily. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:07 p.m., the hearing ended.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
------
Prepared Statement of Stephen Cox
Chairman Sullivan, members of the Commission--thank you for
inviting me to testify today, and thank you for the work this
Commission has done over these 25 years. I appreciate the opportunity
to contribute to that work.
My own interest in the China threat--particularly the threat it
poses to Americans here at home--goes back almost 20 years.
Early in my career, during the Bush administration, I served in the
Director's Office at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of
the recurring challenges we dealt with involved the Chinese
government's gamesmanship in repatriating Chinese nationals who had
been ordered removed under our immigration laws. At the time, we did
not see this simply as an immigration problem. We saw it partly as an
intelligence problem--because of the way the PRC leveraged overseas
networks, influence relationships, and diaspora connections inside the
United States.
Fast forward to my service during the first Trump administration at
the Department of Justice. Attorney General Jeff Sessions launched, and
AG Bill Barr continued, the China Initiative because DOJ increasingly
recognized that the PRC challenge touched nearly every dimension of
American life: intellectual property theft, espionage, cyber
intrusions, economic coercion, higher education, infrastructure,
research institutions, supply chains, and influence operations.
When I moved to Texas in 2020 to become U.S. Attorney for the
Eastern District of Texas, it was a few months later that the State
Department shut down the Chinese Consulate in Houston after determining
that it had become a hub for espionage, intellectual property theft,
and influence operations directed against the United States. The
closure was a stark reminder that the PRC threat was not an abstract
foreign-policy concern overseas--it was operating on American soil,
targeting American institutions, businesses, and citizens.
Most recently, as the 28th Attorney General of Alaska, I began
standing up what we called a Counter-China Initiative--to consider an
all-of-government approach to threats posed by the PRC to consumers,
businesses, infrastructure, and public institutions in Alaska. And in
my current role as Counsel to the Governor, I intend to continue and
expand that work with the new Acting Attorney General and across other
state agencies.
To my mind, for the first time, consumers are on the front lines of
our geopolitical conflict with China, and many of the CCP's threats to
Americans now arrive through ordinary consumer channels. And when I say
consumers, I mean not only families, but businesses and governments as
well. Every phone, app, router, camera, payment platform, and cloud
service can potentially become an access point. We know in a
theoretical sense how Beijing's access to massive amounts of American
data could create a problem. A November article from the Financial
Times gave one specific example: that a large Chinese technology
company was providing American data to China's military in order to
help them target Americans. This weaponized usage of American data gets
directly at the threat of transnational repression which we are
discussing today. State attorneys general are uniquely positioned
because consumer protection laws allow us to pursue deception, data
abuse, undisclosed risks, and unfair trade practices--areas where
foreign influence often hides in plain sight.
Alaska's consumer protection laws are among the strongest in the
country, and I believe consumer protection is one of the most powerful
state-level tools available to address aspects of the Chinese threat.
We are actively looking for opportunities to use those authorities--
both on our own and in partnership with other strong attorneys general
around the country, like Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers,
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and Texas Attorney General Ken
Paxton.
General Hilgers has been a national leader in this space. His
office has pursued actions involving allegedly deceptive data-
collection practices by Chinese-linked technology platforms and has
also taken action involving connected camera and surveillance
technologies sold to American consumers. General Paxton has also been a
leader here. Texas currently has open claims against TP-Link, the
largest router provider in America, along with Chinese television
producers, camera companies, and mobile app providers. These efforts
demonstrate that traditional consumer-protection authorities can play
an important role in protecting Americans from risks that often have a
national-security dimension.
We approached the China threat from another angle in Alaska. We
became concerned about the flood of Chinese vape products entering
American markets outside normal FDA review and approval processes. Many
were marketed aggressively to younger consumers, with little
transparency regarding sourcing, ingredients, or safety. The FDA has
primary authority here, but we took steps to educate businesses and
consumers about these risks that consumers, frankly, weren't aware of.
Another area of concern from a public safety perspective--and the
focus of today's hearing--is transnational repression. We have not seen
significant reported incidents in Alaska to date. But I would also
caution that this is not the sort of threat that is easy to identify
without training and awareness. That's because if you do not know what
to look for, it could be happening right in front of your nose.
It may look like harassment. It may look like unusual pressure on a
student. It may look like intimidation of a family after someone
attends a protest or speaks publicly. It may involve digital
surveillance, pressure campaigns, coercive phone calls, or threats
directed at relatives overseas.
I would strongly support efforts to educate law enforcement on this
threat, how we train personnel to recognize it, and how we coordinate
with federal authorities when these situations arise.
Looking ahead, I believe the next frontier will involve closer
coordination between attorneys general and administrative enforcement
agencies--particularly in areas involving financial regulation, money
transmission, data access, and critical infrastructure. One area that
has drawn my attention involves cross-border payment platforms and
money transmitters operating inside the United States, where questions
of licensing, data security, cloud architecture, and foreign access
increasingly intersect.
On this front, I want to commend Senator Tom Cotton of this
Commission for publicly urging the Department of Justice to investigate
reported risks involving Airwallex and potential exposure of sensitive
American financial data to CCP influence or access.
I have my own concerns about this sector generally. A money-
transmitter license is a privilege, not a right, and it carries
obligations relating to consumer protection, data security, anti-money-
laundering compliance, and the overall fitness of the licensee to
handle sensitive financial information. I think it is reasonable to ask
whether those obligations are fully compatible with a business model
that places sensitive data, operational control, or key personnel
within the reach of foreign-adversary governments, particularly where
those governments claim legal authority to compel access to
information. Those are the kinds of questions that state regulators
increasingly will need to confront, and I've begun to have those
conversations with our state regulators in Alaska.
States do not need to conduct foreign policy to play an important
role here. But states can protect consumers. We can protect critical
infrastructure. We can investigate deception, data abuse, and
undisclosed risks. And we can ensure that Americans are not unknowingly
exposed to foreign-adversary leverage through the products and services
they use every day.
In other words, states should build upon domestic resilience in
line with the federal direction on national security threats. The
federal government tells us who our foreign adversaries are. States can
be a force multiplier for securing our nation, and provide stronger and
deeper front-line resilience against global threats.
That mission resonates particularly strongly in Alaska. Alaskans
have an express constitutional right to privacy, and we take that right
seriously. We also live in a place where consumer products, technology,
and services are often more expensive and harder to obtain than
elsewhere in the country. If Alaskans are paying a premium for a
product or service, they deserve to know what they are getting--and
what risks may come with it.
We are also America's Arctic state and a Pacific state. We sit at
the intersection of strategic cargo, telecommunications, critical
minerals, ports, fisheries, and Arctic logistics. As a result, many of
the issues discussed today are not abstract for us.
My message is simple: many of the CCP's threats to Americans
increasingly manifest themselves through areas traditionally governed
by the states--public safety, consumer protection, licensing, and
infrastructure. And because of that, states have both the authority and
the responsibility to act--carefully, lawfully, and strategically--
alongside our Federal partners.
______
Prepared Statement of Eliot Bostar
Chair Sullivan, Co-chair Smith, and honorable members of the
Commission, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Over the last four years, the Nebraska Legislature has passed a
slate of laws designed to protect Nebraskans from transnational
repression, safeguard Nebraska's data and critical infrastructure
against threats by foreign adversaries, and combat malign influence
operations. Our first major statewide reform came in 2023. Since then,
we have either led or partnered with other states in enacting
pioneering security reforms every legislative session. In 2024, we
focused on preparing our state for a potential conflict in the Pacific,
in 2025 we worked to root out foreign influence operations and
transnational repression, and earlier this year, we passed laws to
protect our critical infrastructure. Nebraska is creating tangible
results to protect our state and our citizens and building solutions
that can serve as a model for other states, Congress, and even allied
countries.
Nebraska is home to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force
Base as well as numerous nuclear missile installations. We are one of
the world's leading agricultural producers, and we are deeply
integrated into America's transportation systems, financial and
insurance systems, telecommunications networks, and other critical
infrastructure. These attributes make Nebraska an attractive target for
foreign adversaries. However, these attributes are also common across
our nation. Every state has critical industries, infrastructure, and
institutions that our national security relies on.
The People's Republic of China is a threat to every state and every
community in our country.
Our work to address the threats facing Nebraska from the PRC began
when we were alerted to concerns held by the Department of Defense
about the pervasiveness of Huawei technology within the vicinity of
critical defense infrastructure in
Nebraska, including Strategic Command and nuclear missile sites.
Two years prior--in 2020--the U.S. Government took formal action to
designate Huawei Technologies as a threat to national security, and
Congress approved $1.9 billion to remove this Chinese-made cellular
technology from communications systems across America. But Huawei
technology was still in use--and being newly installed--throughout
Nebraska years later.
In 2023, we drafted legislation to address this security risk by
prohibiting telecommunications companies from receiving state-directed
funds, including from the Nebraska Universal Service Fund, if they use
or provide communications equipment deemed a national security threat.
Additionally, telecommunications companies must certify annually that
they are not utilizing any equipment identified as a threat by the FCC,
and are subject to fines and penalties if they cannot provide that
certification. The law also incentivizes the removal of prohibited
equipment by stipulating that any telecommunications company that
removes or replaces equipment identified as a national security threat
shall not be required to obtain any additional permits or authorization
from any state agency or local government for that removal or
replacement. This provision prevents bureaucratic red-tape from
endangering our national security.
Robust lobbying pressure was employed to keep Beijing-linked
technologies in use throughout Nebraska's telecommunications
infrastructure. But elected officials from both parties ultimately
rejected this pressure and made certain that state funds were not
subsidizing foreign surveillance. Nebraska enacted this legislation and
paired it with executive actions restricting other state support for
telecommunications equipment tied to Huawei and related entities.
After passage of this law, my office was inundated with information
from national security and defense professionals who identified threats
that could be addressed at the state level. Their expertise and
partnership encouraged us to push forward, and we passed several more
laws in 2024 to protect Nebraska against foreign adversaries.
The Foreign-owned Real Estate National Security Act works to
protect strategic land near military installations and restrict foreign
adversary ownership of critical real estate. This act prevents any
person, foreign government, or entity determined to be a foreign
adversary, from holding land within ten miles of a military
installation, including nuclear missile silos. In cases of
noncompliance, the law provides the Nebraska Attorney General with
authority to force divestment.
We passed legislation to address the security gap left by the
expiration of federal Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards. The
federal standards were created after the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks to ensure that high-risk chemical facilities were secure and
protected from weaponization by terrorists. With passage of our bill,
high-risk chemical facilities in Nebraska are now required to
participate in the otherwise voluntary ChemLock program to promote
continued security against potential terrorist threats involving
hazardous chemicals.
The Pacific Conflict Stress Test Act created the joint Legislative
and Executive Committee on Pacific Conflict with a straightforward
purpose: to assess how a conflict in the Pacific could disrupt and
endanger Nebraska. The Committee meets quarterly and works to identify
ongoing vulnerabilities--evaluating the state's supply chains, export
markets, critical infrastructure, and security apparatus--to make
recommendations to strengthen state resilience.
Lastly, in 2024, we passed the Foreign Adversary Contracting
Prohibition Act. This legislation prohibits companies controlled by
foreign adversaries from participation in sensitive procurement
contracts involving communications technology, networked systems, and
critical infrastructure.
As we worked to pass these laws, we encountered significant
opposition from a variety of interests. We learned about local
government officials being contacted by the CCP, and we started to hear
from victims of transnational repression, who were willing to share
their stories. Reporting emerged regarding an alleged Chinese
``overseas service station'' operating in Omaha, which further elevated
our concerns regarding intelligence activity and transnational
repression occurring within Nebraska. It became clear that we needed to
take action to limit the CCP's broader ability to influence,
manipulate, and hurt people in our state. This confluence of factors
led us, in 2025, to introduce the Foreign Adversary and Terrorist Agent
Registration Act and the Crush Transnational Repression in Nebraska
Act.
The Foreign Adversary and Terrorist Agent Registration Act brings
transparency to political, propaganda, and influence activities
conducted by agents of foreign adversaries. The Act makes it unlawful
for any person to act as an agent of a foreign adversary nation or
foreign terrorist organization unless that person has registered with
the Nebraska Attorney General. The Act requires any informational
material distributed by an agent of a foreign adversary to be notated
with a conspicuous statement identifying it as such, and to be
submitted to the Attorney General within 48 hours.
Additionally, with passage of this Act, it is now against the law
for an agent of a foreign adversary to communicate in any way with
local or state government, any political propaganda or information on
topics of politics, policy, or public interest, unless the
communication is accompanied by a statement that the individual is
registered as an agent of a foreign adversary. If an agent of a foreign
adversary is testifying before the state legislature or any local
government, they must provide the body with a copy of the most recent
registration filed with the Attorney General.
The legislation also stipulates that if an individual or entity is
representing a principal designated by the Pentagon as a Chinese
military company, they must present an affirmative acknowledgment that
they are working on behalf of, and thereby acting as an agent of, a
foreign adversary of the United States. They must also disclose that
they are lobbying on behalf of a Chinese military company and disclose
that the Chinese military company is a foreign adversary of the United
States in all lobbying activities, including mail, telephone calls,
email, in-person meetings, or testimony at legislative hearings.
Violation of this provision results in a $100,000 fine, which
increases by $100,000 for each subsequent violation, up to a maximum
fine of $1 million per violation. Any individual who provides
information leading to a penalty under this act is entitled to receive
a $50,000 reward from the state.
The Crush Transnational Repression in Nebraska Act defines covered
offenses of transnational repression, which are specific crimes already
existing in law, that will now receive an enhancing charge in Nebraska
if the person committing the offense is an agent of a foreign
principal. This legislation also punishes foreign law enforcement, such
as what reportedly occurs at so-called Chinese police stations, by
establishing that an agent of a foreign adversary commits a felony if
such person intentionally attempts to enforce a law or rule of a
government of a foreign country in Nebraska.
We also passed legislation to reform our economic incentive
programs to prevent foreign adversary companies from accessing any
benefit from the state of Nebraska.
The Chinese Communist Party is adept at creating corporations
ultimately answerable to the Chinese military apparatus and maneuvering
those entities into positions where they are receiving American dollars
to underwrite espionage efforts within our borders. No entity loyal to
an adversary of this nation should be the beneficiary of any economic
incentive paid for by our tax dollars.
In our final 2025 reform, we passed legislation in line with what
Congress accomplished with the BIOSECURE Act in the most recent
National Defense Authorization Act. Our genetic protection law
establishes that no medical or research facility shall use any genetic
sequencer, or software for genetic sequencing, if such device or
software is produced in or by a foreign adversary. Chinese companies
sanctioned by the Pentagon for human rights abuses have developed some
of the world's largest gene banks. This genetic information is
effectively property of the Chinese military and used for surveillance
and military purposes. These massive stockpiles of genetic information
provide the People's Republic of China and the Chinese military a clear
advantage for creating bioweapons. Senior Chinese military officials
have in fact already argued in favor of creating genetically targeted
bioweapons that can incapacitate individuals based upon ethnicity. This
law takes every measure possible to cut off Chinese military companies
from accessing the genetic data of Nebraskans, and it complements and
extends the congressional accomplishments in the BIOSECURE Act.
Just this spring, we enacted a new and unique protection for
critical infrastructure, which contains two important provisions.
First, foreign adversary companies are prohibited from providing
critical infrastructure or contracting with critical infrastructure
providers in such a way that would allow them to exercise operational
control over critical infrastructure. Second, critical infrastructure
providers are prohibited from utilizing network-connected technologies
that would allow for remote operational control and sabotage.
Furthermore, we codified new enhanced penalties for crimes that we
define as bioterrorism, including bringing in different pathogens for
the purpose of damaging our farmlands as a tactic of hybrid warfare. We
have seen several Chinese nationals
arrested in Michigan for this type of crime over the past year alone.
Although we faced significant opposition to each of these pieces of
legislation, we were able to pass them into law with bipartisan
support.
The effects of Nebraska's actions are already visible. Awareness
among state and local officials has increased significantly.
Procurement standards have hardened. Infrastructure protections have
expanded. Law enforcement coordination has improved. And Nebraska now
evaluates infrastructure and investment questions through a national
security framework that simply did not exist several years ago. Some of
our most impactful reforms have received inquiries from other states
that have replicated them. Congressional leaders, executive agencies,
and even other nations like the United Kingdom have learned from
different facets of what Nebraska has achieved.
Most importantly, Nebraska's leadership in combating malign foreign
influence has demonstrated that states have power and responsibility in
this space. America is a continental power. Our country is
geographically massive, and our constitutional system is strongly
federalist. States have dual sovereignty, and state leaders are closer
to many of the national security risks that our citizens face. It only
makes sense that states drive reforms that are aligned with or layer on
top of federal protections. In fact, both President Biden and President
Trump have called upon states to lead in driving solutions where we are
closest to the security risks. We know our adversaries are coordinated
and adept at attacking us at every layer of government--we must be able
to defend ourselves utilizing this same whole-of-government approach.
We must strengthen coordination both between the states themselves
and between the states and the federal government. Our work in Nebraska
has been made possible by the guidance and partnership we have received
from national
security experts and practitioners. To meet the challenge across our
nation, we need more established and formalized systems of
coordination. We must ensure that we all have access to timely threat
information, clear guidance, and meaningful partnerships so that we can
identify vulnerabilities, protect critical assets, and contribute fully
and comprehensively to the defense of the American homeland.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward
to your
questions.
Prepared Statement of Arthur Liu
Chairman Sullivan, Co-Chairman Smith, and members of the
Commission: Thank you for inviting me to testify here today. My name is
Arthur Liu. I am a political dissident from China and the father of
Olympic Gold Medalist Alysa Liu.
It is especially meaningful to testify before this Commission on
June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, because the story I
am telling today began in 1989 and, in many ways, continues to this
day.
June 4 is a day that I will never forget. Thirty-seven years ago
today, the Chinese government sent tanks and soldiers into the streets
of Beijing and used military force against its own people. Thousands of
students and civilians who had gathered peacefully to call for
democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the rule of law,
and basic human rights lost their lives. Hundreds more were severely
injured.
At that time, I was in Guangzhou attending graduate school at
Zhongshan University. I was one of the principal organizers of the
democracy movement there.
When news of the massacre reached Guangzhou, I was devastated. I
could not understand and believe how a government that claimed to serve
the people could turn its weapons against its own young people. In
response, I organized additional peaceful protests and demonstrations
condemning the violence. Soon afterwards, I became the most wanted
democracy activist in southern China.
I was fortunate to escape to Hong Kong. I came to America as a
refugee at the end of 1989.
After I came to America, I continued to organize protests in front
of the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco and in front of the Chinese
Embassy here in Washington, D.C. calling upon the Chinese government to
release political and religious prisoners in China. I have spoken
publicly many times about the human rights abuses in China.
Like many refugees, I believed that once I arrived in America, I
had left political persecution behind. An incident in late 2021 proved
me wrong!
To explain what happened, I must first tell you a little bit about
my daughter, Alysa Liu. Alysa recently won two gold medals for the
United States of America at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan-
Cortina. Before that, she became the youngest U.S. women's champion in
history when she won the U.S. Figure Skating Championship at ages 13
and 14. She set records as the youngest female skater in history ever
to land a triple Axel in international competition, at the age of 12,
and she was the first female skater in history to land both a triple
Axel and a quadruple jump in the same competition program. In 2021, it
was clear that she was on her way to represent the United States of
America in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
One day in late October or early November 2021, I received a phone
call. The caller identified himself as an official associated with the
United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. He told me that he was
conducting travel preparedness for international travel for me and my
daughter and needed copies of our passports. He gave me a fax number to
fax them to him. I told him that I would do it the next day. But I
never did. That request felt unusual to me given that I knew how to
submit our passports to the U.S. Figure Skating Association for
international
competitions.
A few days later, I got a phone call from the FBI, and they wanted
to meet with me. During that meeting, agents informed me that my
daughter and I were the targets of a Chinese government intelligence
operation. They told me that an individual operating on behalf of the
People's Republic of China had come to the San Francisco Bay area and
was attempting to obtain personal information about us, including
passport information.
I was shocked. My first thought was not about myself. It was about
my daughter. I felt fearful for Alysa's safety not only in Beijing, but
also in the United States. When Alysa returned from a competition in
Japan, I decided to take her to another city for training.
As we were boarding our flight, I received a telephone call from
the FBI. The agent informed me that the spy was on his way to our home.
I will never forget that moment. It's a scene straight out of a movie!
I was feeling chills in my bones.
The FBI agent informed me that they were prepared to move forward
with the arrest of the spies. But I was terrified for Alysa's safety in
Beijing and mental stress if the spying operation came to light. I
asked the FBI not to take any action until after the Olympic Games and
until Alysa returned home safely from China. I also requested
additional security precautions for her during the Olympic Games.
Throughout her time in Beijing, Alysa was accompanied by two adults
as she traveled between venues and participated in the Olympic Games.
That gave me some comfort. But it never completely eliminated my fear
for her safety. As a father, I was worried every day and prayed for her
safe return to America, every day.
On March 16, 2022, after the Olympic Games, the Department of
Justice announced criminal charges against the spies; one of them was
Matthew Ziburis.
According to the federal criminal complaint, I was identified as
``Dissident 3,'' and Alysa was identified as the ``family member.'' The
complaint alleged efforts to obtain information about me and my family,
including passport information, personal identifying information, and
details about our lives. The complaint further alleged surveillance
efforts directed at me, including placing a GPS tracker on my car to
track my daily activities.
After the spying operation came to light in the news, a neighboring
business owner came over to me and told me that he had seen the spy
identified as Matthew Ziburis several times lingering around the lobby
in front of my office.
I am personally grateful to the brave FBI agents who provided
security for me and my daughter. I appreciate that the U.S. Government
took forceful action to prosecute those spies. However, America cannot
just stop there.
We all must understand that America will not be safe until China
becomes a democracy! We all must understand that America will not be
safe until China has a government which respects basic human rights and
honors the rule of law! We all must understand that America will not be
safe until people all over the world can live peacefully and
harmoniously together.
America, we have a lot of work to do! Thank you!
Thank you again for inviting me to testify here today. I look
forward to answering your questions.
______
Prepared Statement of Anna Kwok
Distinguished Members of the Commission:
Thank you for inviting me to share my experience as a target of
intensifying transnational repression in the United States.
In this battle against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)--a regime
that fears opposition--feeling safe is a privilege. I am among hundreds
of thousands of rights defenders in America who live every single day
knowing we are being watched and threatened. All incidents of
transnational repression I share today took place on American soil.
Together, they illustrate the varied tactics of a transnational
repression campaign.
I served as the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Democracy
Council, a U.S. advocacy organization sanctioned by the PRC. In May
2023, after I testified before this very Commission on the loss of Hong
Kong's political autonomy and its implications for the U.S., the regime
swiftly retaliated by issuing a 1 million HKD bounty on my head. My
assets were frozen, and my passport was revoked, crippling my
international advocacy work. More bounties were later issued on
American citizens and residents.
The bounty put a huge target on my back. State media, pro-CCP
extremists, and online propagandists launched a coordinated campaign to
discourage the American public from associating with me.
Explicit threats to hurt, kidnap, rape, and even execute me on
American soil flooded my social media.
The lawfare and digital threats became physical in November 2023
during Chinese leader Xi Jinping's visit to the U.S. When I organized
protests against Xi and campaigned successfully to bar the sanctioned
Hong Kong Chief Executive from entering the country, the regime
retaliated on the streets of San Francisco: masked men assaulted fellow
protesters while WeChat groups circulated my whereabouts. I escaped
physical harm only because fellow protesters protected me; local police
were completely oblivious to the existence of transnational repression
and refused to intervene. To this day, none of the perpetrators,
including American nationals, have been convicted. For the first time,
I felt as if I had been transported back to the lawless streets of Hong
Kong; even though I was in the land of the free, I was not free.
The online campaign and real-life violence achieved a chilling
effect across America: Some supporters of the pro-democracy movement
stopped showing up to events; a few went so far as to erase their
digital footprints. Their response is all too familiar: it happened
once in my first home, Hong Kong, and it is now happening in my second
home, America.
Nonetheless, I refused to back down. I led a campaign to expose the
foreign influence and transnational threats brought by the Hong Kong
Economic and Trade
Offices (HKETOs). In response, the regime unleashed its cruelest
weapon: psychological warfare.
Last May, the regime arrested my father in Hong Kong. He was later
convicted on fabricated charges. The state-run trial centered on an
insurance policy my father had purchased when I was just a two-year-old
learning to say ``papa.'' My father is imprisoned simply because he is
my father. He is now a hostage serving a sentence for crimes neither of
us committed. The CCP weaponized my love for my family in an attempt to
silence me forever.
I speak to you today as my 70-year-old father sits in a cell 8,000
miles away. I speak as someone with a 1 million HKD bounty on my head.
I speak as a target of rampant transnational repression. And I speak as
someone who is standing my ground to combat an urgent threat to
American national security.
When a hostile foreign power launches centralized efforts--spanning
state agencies, united front groups and individual extremists--to
silence people inside the U.S., the government must respond with
centralized, coordinated mechanisms. I urge the House Foreign Affairs
Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee to mark up the
bipartisan Transnational Repression Policy Act immediately--passing
this legislation will provide the bedrock for building long-term cross-
agency mechanisms that are necessary to protect America.
This is a litmus test for the country. If the U.S. does not draw a
hard line and act quickly, the PRC will continue to push our
boundaries, from running secret police stations to co-opting state
officials. States like Nebraska and Utah are gearing up to protect
their people; the nation should get ahead, too. We must confront the
threat of transnational repression urgently, before it becomes a
normalized pattern that cannot be undone. Thank you.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith
Before we begin, I want to mark a solemn anniversary. Today marks
the 37th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Thirty-seven
years ago, millions of Chinese citizens peacefully asked for political
reform, democratic openness, and basic human dignity. Their hope was
met with tanks.
The Chinese Communist Party unleashed the People's Liberation Army
on peaceful demonstrators. Mothers lost sons. Fathers lost daughters.
And China lost an idealistic generation to the violence of June 4,
1989. There has been no full accounting of those killed, imprisoned, or
disappeared. The Party still tries to erase a massacre the world must
never forget.
But Tiananmen cannot be erased. The enduring image of that day is
the Tank Man--the solitary figure standing before a column of tanks.
His courage reminds us that the desire for freedom is not Western, not
foreign, and not imposed from outside. It is universal.
As I have said before, a choice has to be made by us all: you
either stand with the Tank Man, or you stand with the tank. There is no
middle ground.
And there is no middle ground in the subject before us today.
Tiananmen is not a detour from this hearing. It is the key to
understanding it. The same Party that tried to crush truth at home now
tries to chase truth abroad.
The tactics have changed. The technology has changed. The reach has
expanded. But the purpose is the same: to make people afraid to speak
the truth--by almost any means necessary. Inside China, the CCP uses
surveillance, censorship, prison, torture, forced disappearance, and
fear to maintain power.
But what happens in China no longer stays in China. The Party wants
to control what is said about China here, and control who says it.
The CECC has warned about the CCP's long arm for years. Long before
``transnational repression'' became a common phrase, I held a dozen or
so Commission hearings documenting and exposing a consistent pattern of
global abuse--starting with the Confucius Institutes in 2014.
Over time, tactics have become more digital and more ruthless:
detaining family members in China, doxxing, spyware, deepfakes, Hong
Kong bounties, and illegal police stations right here in the United
States. It is outrageous and unacceptable and must be stopped.
Transnational repression is not the only threat Americans face, but
it is part of a broader, interconnected CCP strategy. We see that
strategy in scam networks stealing from U.S. citizens, fentanyl
poisoning our cities, PRC-linked land purchases near military
installations, efforts to corrupt politicians and elections, steal
private personnel and biometric data, and intellectual property theft
from businesses and universities.
These may look like separate problems, but they share a common
purpose: exploit our openness, gather leverage, weaken our
institutions, spread propaganda, and make Americans pay a price for
standing up to Beijing.
Transnational repression is the most personal form of that
strategy. It brings the pressure campaign to the doorstep of the
student, journalist, dissident, artist, and family member. That is why
state and local responses matter. A victim may first call local police.
A student may go to a university official. A state attorney general may
see the pattern. A state legislator may realize existing law does not
fit the threat.
So the questions are practical: Do local officers recognize this
threat, do universities know how to protect students, do states have
the tools they need, and does the federal government have a real
strategy?
That is why I am proud to work with Chairman Sullivan, Senator
Merkley, and Representative McGovern on the Transnational Repression
Policy Act. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation would define the
abuse, improve coordination, train officials, support targeted
communities, and hold perpetrators accountable--because victims need
more than sympathy. They need protection and a place to turn.
Let me make one point clear. A regime that fears a student's
question, a refugee's protest, an artist's statue, or the simple memory
of Tiananmen is not a strong and confident superpower. It is afraid.
And fear in the hands of a dictatorship is dangerous. It becomes
coercion. It becomes censorship. It becomes repression that crosses
borders and reaches into our communities.
So our answer must be unmistakable. If the CCP threatens people
here, there must be investigations and prosecutions. If it reaches
across our borders to spread fear, there must be sanctions. If it takes
family members hostage to silence a critic, we will demand their
release and expose the cruelty of that tactic. And if it tries to
censor a free people, we will defend and spread the rights Beijing
fears most: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of
assembly, and the right to tell the truth without fear.
Because in the United States of America, unlike in China, no one
needs the Party's permission to speak, to worship, to protest, to
remember, or to be free.
That is why this hearing matters.
Thank you. I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Dan Sullivan
Today's hearing comes at a pivotal moment. Because one of the
clearest lessons of the last decade is this: what happens in China does
not stay in China.
The Chinese Communist Party is not content to repress people inside
China's borders. It is increasingly trying to export that repression
abroad, including here in the United States. And that is what this
hearing is about: threats to Americans, on American soil.
Let me say at the outset, very clearly: That is unacceptable, it is
outrageous and it has to stop. And the title of this hearing goes
directly to legislation that Congressman Smith and Congressman McGovern
are leading in the House, and that Senator Merkley and I are advancing
in the Senate: the Transnational Repression Policy Act.
That bill starts from a very basic principle. If the CCP is going
to harass, surveil, threaten, and intimidate people living in freedom
in the United States, then the United States needs to respond--
seriously, strategically, and on a bipartisan basis. Because this is
not some secondary issue. It is about protecting Americans.
Let me make this concrete. Alaska may not sit at the center of the
PRC's transnational repression apparatus, but even Alaska has not been
spared. An Alaskan constituent recounted to me that, during a high-
level CCP official's visit to
Alaska, he was intimidated and surrounded by Chinese security officials
after staging a one-person protest. He said that a local Chinese
community group was then contacted to register displeasure over his
exercise of free speech.
Think about that. One person, standing alone, on American soil,
exercising a constitutional right. And that was enough to trigger an
effort by the Chinese Communist Party to intimidate him into silence.
That incident took place some time ago. Since then, the CCP's
tactics have evolved, its operations have expanded, and its reach has
grown much more sophisticated. Freedom House has described the PRC's
transnational repression campaign as the most sophisticated,
comprehensive, and far reaching in the world. But the goal is still the
same--to use the power and pressure of the party-state to coerce,
censor, and silence critics far beyond China's borders.
That is why this hearing matters.
And more and more, the CCP is not just targeting the critic. It is
targeting the family. It threatens relatives, jails family members,
uses exit bans, and pressures loved ones back in China in order to
silence people living freely here in America. We should call that what
it is: hostage diplomacy. It is a way of telling people in the United
States that if they speak out, somebody they love may pay the price.
Chinese students and scholars are intimidated on university
campuses. Chinese military-backed companies are forging ties with
university researchers and buying land near sensitive military sites.
We have even seen efforts to establish Chinese police stations here in
the United States. The CCP is targeting critics, pressuring families,
stealing from Americans through scam centers tied to Chinese criminal
networks, and making people in this country think twice before they
speak.
These may look like different problems on paper, but they reflect
the same basic approach: project power, spread fear, gather leverage,
and probe for weakness here in the United States.
One encouraging sign is that states are not waiting around for
Washington. Texas took action in 2024 to protect Texans from PRC-led
transnational repression. And in 2025, lawmakers in Texas, Nebraska,
and Arizona--Republicans and Democrats--passed bipartisan legislation
to strengthen penalties and improve law-
enforcement responses.
We should be learning from those efforts. What is working? Where
are the gaps? What tools do state and local officials need and how can
the federal government actually be helpful?
These are practical questions. But they are also urgent ones.
Because every day this goes unanswered, the CCP gets a little bolder.
And we cannot allow that to become normal.
People who come to America for freedom should not have to live in
fear on American soil. People exercising rights protected by our
Constitution should not have to look over their shoulder because
Beijing is threatening their family members back home. Chinese students
on American campuses should not have to wonder whether the regime is
watching them. And the Chinese Communist Party should never come to
believe that it can use surveillance, intimidation, or deepfakes to
police speech or spread fear inside the United States without a
response.
Threats to Americans are unacceptable. That is the bottom line. And
if the CCP thinks it can intimidate people in the United States and get
away with it, then this hearing should send a very clear message: Not
here. Not in this country. And not without a concerted and tough
response.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern
I want to thank my colleague from New Jersey, Congressman Smith,
for his words and for his commitment to human rights, not only in China
but all around the world.
Good morning. I join my colleagues in welcoming our witnesses and
guests to today's hearing on transnational repression.
Today is June 4th. And as Co-chair Smith pointed out, 37 years ago,
the Chinese government directed the military to attack civilians who
were exercising their right to freedom of expression to call for
economic and political reform.
Let us never forget those who bravely stood for freedom in
Tiananmen Square and other cities, the mothers who never knew the fate
of their children, and those who continue to tell the stories in the
face of a government that seeks to silence them.
And let us not forget that any society whose leaders are willing to
use lethal force against peaceful protesters is a society at risk of
losing its fundamental liberties.
I am glad that the Commission continues to address transnational
repression. In 2020, Co-chair Marco Rubio and I created a new chapter
called ``Human Rights Violations in the U.S. and Globally'' in the
Annual Report.
CECC staff have just released a special report on transnational
repression. I always appreciate the dedication of the non-partisan
subject matter experts who work for the Commission. This report is
absolutely worth reading.
China is the world's worst perpetrator of transnational repression.
Freedom House lists the PRC with the most incidents (319) since 2014--
and that only accounts for reported incidents. Who knows how many
people have gotten threatening texts or calls that they are too scared
to report?
But transnational repression (TNR) is more than China. Freedom
House lists Tajikistan, Rwanda, Russia, Egypt, and Belarus among the
biggest violators. Last year I chaired a Tom Lantos Human Rights
Commission hearing highlighting TNR by India, Pakistan, and Hong Kong.
Yesterday afternoon Co-chair Smith and I convened a hearing on Turkiye,
listed with 160 TNR incidents.
Hearings are fine. But it really is time for action.
Advocates tell us their #1 goal is to create a standard definition
of transnational repression. I am proud to join with CECC leaders
Senators Merkley and Sullivan and Co-chair Smith in sponsoring the
Transnational Repression Policy Act. It defines TNR in statute,
strengthening efforts to counter it at the federal, state and local
level. This bill was first introduced in the House three years ago. But
it has gone nowhere.
In March, Freedom House led a coalition of 35 organizations,
including Uyghur, Tibetan, Chinese, and Hong Kong human rights groups,
in a statement to the chairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asking them to mark up the bill.
Foreign Affairs has scheduled four mark-ups since that letter. But
the Transnational Repression Policy Act never makes the agenda. I ask
Chairman Mast in the House to act.
Our bill is important because it would give the U.S. the tools to
lead on TNR. Equally important, we must acknowledge that the tools will
only be effective if we avoid double standards. I worry we are falling
short:
1. President Biden started and President Trump completed the
rehabilitation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who
directed the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. We lose
credibility when the U.S. Government allows impunity for
transnational repression.
2. This Commission characterized the deportation by Thailand
of 40 Uyghurs to China as transnational repression. Yet the
Trump administration has deported individuals who have been
transnationally repressed in the U.S. by Iran and Russia back
to those countries. We lose credibility to ask other countries
to protect TNR victims when the U.S. Government refuses to
protect TNR victims.
3. To the extent we label political interference by China in
the U.S. as transnational repression, then we must consider
Senator Bernie Moreno's meddling in the Colombian election as
transnational repression. We lose credibility when U.S.
officials act like CCP officials.
4. Last year the Trump administration sanctioned a Brazilian
judge who brought insurrectionists to justice, falsely
portraying legitimate accountability as transnational
repression. We lose credibility when U.S. officials pervert TNR
to help political allies.
In September, our credibility will again be tested. Xi Jinping will
visit Washington at President Trump's invitation. The last time he was
in the U.S., thugs associated with the Chinese consulate in San
Francisco beat up anti-Xi protesters. We must be prepared to defend the
right to protest here.
The question is: Will we?
The Trump administration has deployed security forces to suppress
Americans' right to protest. They're doing it now outside the Delaney
Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey. If Xi Jinping asks President
Trump to contain or control Chinese, Uyghur, and Tibetan protesters,
will he do that, or will he be wind at the backs of those engaged in
legitimate dissent?
The administration has deported people for exercising their free
speech rights under the First Amendment and the ICCPR to criticize the
Israeli government. If Xi Jinping asks President Trump to deport
people, for whatever reason, back to China, we must make it clear that
that is unacceptable, and we will not do that, and we will not stand
for that.
Transnational repression is a human rights violation. All human
beings are
entitled to the same rights, no matter where they live, or how they
feel about their
government.
I thank the witnesses for being here and I welcome their insight.
[THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY BLANK]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY BLANK]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY BLANK]
Witness Biographies
Stephen J. Cox, Counsel to the Governor, State of Alaska
Stephen J. Cox serves as Counsel to the Governor of Alaska and
previously served as Alaska's 28th Attorney General. In state service,
he has advised the Governor and executive agencies on major legal,
constitutional, and policy matters, including litigation, public
safety, regulatory initiatives, resource development priorities,
consumer protection, and risks connected to China such as illegal
imports, counterfeit and unsafe products, and technology concerns
affecting vulnerable Alaskans. He previously served as Senior Vice
President and Chief Legal and Strategy Officer at Bristol Bay
Industrial, and earlier as principal attorney for Apache Corporation's
Alaska operations. Cox also served in senior roles at the U.S.
Department of Justice, including as Deputy Associate Attorney General
and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, where his work
included corporate enforcement policy, regulatory reform, white collar
crime, elder fraud, and violent crime prosecutions.
Eliot Bostar, Nebraska State Senator
State Senator Eliot Bostar represents District 29 in the Nebraska
Legislature, where he was first elected in 2020 and re-elected in 2024.
A nonprofit executive and graduate of St. John's Northwestern Military
Academy and Embry-Riddle University, he serves on the Banking, Commerce
and Insurance Committee, the Revenue Committee, the Committee on
Committees, the Reference Committee, the Rules Committee, the Executive
Board, the Legislature's Planning Committee, the Streamlined Sales and
Use Tax System Committee, and the Statewide Tourism and Recreational
Water Access and Resource Sustainability Committee. Senator Bostar
introduced LB644 at the request of Nebraska's Governor; the measure,
approved by the Governor in June 2025, adopted the Foreign Adversary
and Terrorist Agent Registration Act and the Crush Transnational
Repression in Nebraska Act, among other provisions related to foreign-
adversary contracting and genetic sequencing data.
Arthur Liu, Owner, Inter-Pacific Law Group
Arthur Junguo Liu is an attorney in the San Francisco Bay area and
the father of two-time Olympic gold medalist figure skater Alysa Liu.
Born and raised in China, Liu was attending graduate school at
Zhongshan University in Guangzhou in 1989 when he organized student
demonstrations calling for democracy, human rights, and an end to
corruption. After the June 4 Massacre, he became one of the most wanted
student activists in South China and came to the United States as a
political refugee at the end of 1989. He later earned an MBA and JD in
California and has practiced law for more than 27 years. Liu has
continued his advocacy for democracy and human rights in China by
organizing protests outside the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco and
the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. After PRC-linked efforts to
recruit Alysa Liu to compete for China, Liu and his daughter became
targets of PRC spying operations before the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
Anna Kwok, Board Director and former Executive Director, Hong Kong
Democracy Council
Anna Kwok is a Hong Kong organizer and policy analyst based in
Washington, D.C. She is a Board Director and former Executive Director
of the Hong Kong
Democracy Council, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that supports
Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement and Hong Kongers in the United
States through policy advocacy, diaspora empowerment, and research and
education. Kwok previously worked as an anonymous activist on major
international campaigns, later choosing to make her identity public
after the imposition of Hong Kong's National Security Law in order to
resist the climate of fear affecting Hong Kong activists abroad. In
2023, Hong Kong authorities issued an arrest warrant and offered a HK$1
million bounty in connection with her advocacy work. In 2025, Kwok's
father was arrested and imprisoned in what she and other advocates have
described as retaliation for her advocacy.
[all]