Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) clashed with former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson over his requests that Cotton meet with the top diplomat posted to China’s Houston consulate, which was later shuttered over Beijing’s spying, the senator reveals in his new book, Seven Things You Can’t Say About China, out later this week.
The book makes the case that the Chinese communist regime is an “evil empire.” The Arkansas lawmaker, the fourth most senior senator, chairs the chamber’s intelligence panel and has led efforts to confront Beijing’s espionage and political-influence operations.
Hutchinson confirmed Cotton’s account of their conversations in a statement to National Review and said he was disappointed that the senator declined to court Chinese investment projects for their home state.
The disagreement highlights the gulf between the China policies championed by today’s GOP and the old guard’s willingness to build economic ties. It also highlights how Beijing works to undercut federal policies.
During the first Trump administration, the Chinese embassy and other Chinese Communist Party arms led an extensive state-level lobbying effort against American tariffs on China. Now, as Trump imposes new trade restrictions on Chinese imports, Beijing has started to similarly target the president’s political base, levying retaliatory tariffs on goods produced in GOP-leaning states.
In a section warning about influence operations targeting state and local lawmakers, Cotton notes in the book that while many American elected officials mean well, they have been manipulated by China’s government. He explains that his state is hardly immune to China’s overtures, citing Hutchinson’s handling of his relationship with China’s former consulate general in Houston.
In 2016, Shandong Sun Paper, a Chinese firm, committed to build a $1.5 billion paper mill in the state — a project that Hutchinson touted as a boost to Arkansas’s economy.
Like many governors at the time, Hutchinson sought out Chinese investment, traveling to China at multiple points during his term and holding meetings with Cai Wei, the Chinese consul general from Houston. Cotton was warier, recalling that Sun Paper repeatedly delayed construction and dangled the prospect of further investments: “Watching from afar, I concluded that China was using these proposed investments, especially the Sun Paper mill, to leverage state officials against the Trump administration and our congressional delegation — including me,” he writes.
Cotton recalls that Hutchinson started asking him to meet the Chinese consul general from Houston within a year of the initial agreement for the paper mill. He indicates that he “politely deflected” several such requests. “Finally, I answered that I spend my time in Arkansas meeting with Arkansans (not communists, I should’ve added), and if the Chinese really wanted to meet, the ambassador could come to my Washington office,” he writes.
Hutchinson responded that the Chinese outpost in Houston oversaw investment in Arkansas. Cotton writes: “I definitely wouldn’t meet the consul general in that case, because I didn’t want the Chinese Communists to suspect that I’d pull my punches for a mess of pottage for our state.” He says that a “dumbfounded” Hutchinson was “speechless.”
Cotton concludes that his stance was vindicated in 2020 when Sun Paper pulled out of the deal and when “not coincidentally” the Trump administration closed the Chinese consulate in Houston over its role in extensive espionage operations.
Hutchinson fired back in a statement emailed to NR: “It is true that I was surprised and disappointed (but never speechless) with Tom’s refusal to help bring this major manufacturing investment to south Arkansas . . . The facts are that Sun Paper committed to build a $1 billion plus paper mill which is a jobs opportunity for an economically depressed region of the state and there was no sophisticated technology involved in the project.” He wrote that the trade war “added over $100 million to the investment costs and made the project unworkable.”
Hutchinson said that he traveled to China numerous times to encourage Chinese manufacturing in his state and to market Arkansas agricultural products: “As a former member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am fully aware of the threat from Chinese spying and that is why I coordinated each trip to China with the FBI and gave full intelligence reports as needed upon my return.”
Hutchinson said that he met with the consuls general of many countries during his time as governor and that “leaders should never be hesitant to talk to our competitors” as demonstrated by Trump’s wiliness to meet with Xi Jinping: “I think Trump is wise to do so.”
Cotton’s book addresses instances in which officials chased closer ties to China’s regime over other priorities. Cotton particularly criticizes Governor Gavin Newsom’s overtures to Beijing.
Cotton warns that China uses “sister-city” agreements with U.S. municipalities and states to block Americans from engaging with the Chinese regime’s opponents. He writes about an incident in which NYC Mayor Eric Adams skipped a Manhattan banquet honoring Taiwan’s president following outreach from a Chinese diplomat (initially revealed by National Review).
Cotton also notes of a Chinese diplomat’s warning to the mayor of a New Jersey town against raising the flag of Tibet the following year: “Fortunately, the mayor of little Belleville had more backbone than the mayor of New York and raised the flag anyway.”