Experts recommended a structural and comprehensive U.S. response to the influence and interference of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

A Transnational Rights Protection office to connect “the national security, civil liberties, and academic freedom risks presented by PRC [People’s Republic of China] overseas political activities” was recommended at a hearing with the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), an influential congressional advisory body, on Thursday by Andrew Chubb, director of Lancaster University China Centre in the United Kingdom and a fellow at the Asia Society.

At the same hearing, Peter Mattis, director for intelligence at the Special Competitive Studies Project, suggested a new “open source information and intelligence organization” to address the need to “bridge the intelligence community, the rest of the U.S. government, and outside partners in business, academic, and civil society.” His organization is a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening America’s competitiveness in artificial intelligence and other technologies.

Mattis also recommended the adoption of artificial intelligence for the United States to “improve the comprehensiveness of all-source intelligence analysis” that maps to the scale of the CCP threat.

The USCC hearing, “China’s Global Influence and Interference Activities,” occurred as the U.S.–China relationship hit one of its lowest moments in decades. Chinese leader Xi Jinping just wrapped up a state visit to Russia this week, showcasing a friendship largely based on the anti-Western commitment to reshaping the international order to their interests.

In Congress and other parts of the federal government, addressing the CCP threat is one of the few bipartisan issues.

At a congressional hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew held on the same day as the USCC event, Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) said that Chew achieved something rare: “You have unified Republicans and Democrats, and if only for a day, we’re actually unified because we have serious concerns,” referring to concerns over the popular short-form video app’s ties to the CCP and the risk of the CCP’s access to U.S. consumer data collected by TikTok.

Other bipartisan concerns about the CCP threat include China buying U.S. farmland, China stealing U.S. technology, America’s dependence on China over supply chains, and the CCP’s influence in media and academia. In addition, the FBI has warned about China’s transnational repression on U.S. soil, including secret police stations that have since closed after FBI raids.

Sarah Cook, senior adviser for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at the Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization, said the CCP threat is global. “It’s not about the U.S. versus China. It’s really about people, in countries that take values of democracy and freedom and national sovereignty seriously, themselves being outraged that this is happening in their country,” she told The Epoch Times.

During her testimony to the USCC, she highlighted the importance of protecting free expression amid the CCP’s media influence.

“The take-home is that the CCP is intensifying its efforts to influence media around the world. It’s becoming more sophisticated, covert, and coercive in how that’s happening,” she said. “But there is real democratic pushback and resilience. Both of those phenomena are global, and both of them are happening at the same time.”

“This element of investigating and exposing the CCP influence becomes a very potent form of resilience when people understand what’s actually going on,” she added, giving an example of mainstream media—such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post—getting much income from running CCP propaganda inserts in their print editions.

“They’ve quietly discontinued the insert, which their own journalists were complaining about for a very long time,” said Cook, adding that the exposure of the inserts became “embarrassing” for these media outlets.

According to her, the total amount of money the CCP invested in its global media influence is difficult to uncover. However, she mentioned that it was $7 million for China Daily, a mouthpiece of the CCP in English, to run inserts in five U.S. newspapers over three years.

Meanwhile, her report, “Beijing’s Global Media Influence 2022,” lists over 130 news outlets from 30 countries that have published content placements by CCP-backed entities. Some content is CCP-produced, and some is co-produced by the CCP and the media outlet.

“Do the math. It’s like a tremendous amount of money,” she said.

Jan Jekielek contributed to this report.