Military action in response to the Chinese spy balloon and the other yet-to-be identified objects shot over Lake Huron and Canada raises many alarms and questions, as do the admissions by high-ranking Defense Department officials that these flyovers have been going on for years and have fallen through gaps in our defense perimeter.

However, the problem of China’s espionage is much bigger than these isolated incidents suggest. The Department of Justice reports that “80% of all federal economic espionage prosecutions involve alleged conduct that would benefit the Chinese Communist Party, and about 60% of all United States trade secret theft cases have a nexus to the Chinese Communist Party.”

China’s espionage operations on the United States have been growing stronger for years. According to the New York Times, Congress received an intelligence report last month that underscored at least two other incidents “of a rival power,” which American officials believe to have been China, “conducting aerial surveillance with what appeared to be unknown cutting-edge technology.” Moreover, research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies indicates that Chinese espionage is on the rise, with 76% of purported cases from 2000 to the present occurring since 2010.

China’s intelligence activities, which the FBI classifies as the “greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information,” come in many forms. From traditional human intelligence-gathering from our greatest corporations and universities to hacking government agency computers, China has created its own vacuum to capture vital American information. And this vacuum is doing more than anything else to prepare China for direct warfare with the U.S. In fact, China’s growing aggression on the international stage is in large part possible because of the country’s thievery of American secrets, which include but are not limited to military aircraft designs .

The recent spy balloon scare has fortunately awakened many members of the legislative branch to the severity of this long-term threat to America’s defense interests. In fact, just days ago, Congress held a hearing on how the U.S. can better prevent future Chinese espionage attacks. The hearing left a lot to be desired on the solutions front; nevertheless, with the recent creation of the congressional Select Committee on China, there will unquestionably be more soon. Which raises the question: What steps should Congress take in future hearings to confront this growing Chinese espionage crisis?

First, the body should immediately investigate and take steps to regulate and/or ban the most prominent front for Chinese spying: Confucius Institutes , which have been established on at least 74 college and university campuses. In the words of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), these Institutes are fronts for the Chinese communist government. They claim to be cultural centers where students can learn Chinese language and history, but in reality, they are dangerous bodies run by moles that are hired and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party.

Confucius Institutes aren’t new business for Congress. Grassley and others have already demanded action by the FBI, while Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) previously introduced legislation to crack down on their abuses. At a minimum, however, Congress should subpoena Confucius Institute leaders to get more answers to this growing national security problem.

Next, Congress should act to ensure its aerospace and defense contractors do not have relations with the communist Chinese government that could inadvertently fuel China’s spying vacuum.

The example of concern most cited among defense experts is SpaceX, which gets millions in government contracts even though there is seemingly a paper-thin firewall separating it from Tesla, another Elon Musk-run venture, which has extensive operations and connections to China. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), who sits on the House's counterterrorism subcommittee, has already declared his desire to conduct confidential briefings on Capitol Hill to get answers to possible intelligence questions about Musk’s connections to China. However, to single out Musk would be disingenuous — this is a countrywide problem that requires addressing, and Musk is far from the only technological entrepreneur who conducts business with the Chinese.

In the last Congress, Sen. Marco Rubio introduced legislation, the Space Protection of American Command and Enterprise Act, to increase the government’s vetting of America’s contractors and ensure that funds don’t go to aerospace and telecommunications companies with links to the Chinese government. Given how the recent spy balloon has generated new widescale recognition of the Chinese espionage threat, Congress would be wise to reintroduce this concept in the current session.

Congress would also be remiss if it did not take action to ensure critical government agencies cannot be hacked . Evidence persists that Chinese government hackers are stealing American defense secrets. While the Department of Justice ’s 2018 indictment of the cyberthreat group known as the APT 10 is one of the most widely known examples, China’s hacking against the U.S. has taken place for more than a decade and has continued into the present day. In fact, CNN reported that the U.S. has recently experienced a surge in this nefarious activity.

Senate Intelligence Committee members Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) have already worked together on legislation that would create a new office in the White House to protect America’s cybersecrets. This is a fundamental issue that should be a priority for every official in Washington.

It’s encouraging that wider swaths of Congress are finally starting to take the long-standing Chinese espionage threat seriously. However, if members fail to see that this issue extends far beyond spy balloons, they will never manage to implement meaningful reforms and will risk inflating this crisis to unmanageable heights.

Col. Terry Thompson is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, war planner at the Pentagon, and wing commander at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.