The homeland is vulnerable to sabotage from China .

Last week, the Justice Department announced that it had charged two New York City residents, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, "in connection with opening and operating an undeclared overseas police station, located in lower Manhattan, for the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China." The arrests underscore the seeming impunity with which the Chinese Communist Party operates on American soil. Indeed, there is a growing awareness of the CCP’s activities inside the United States, including purchasing farmland near military bases and collecting data on U.S. citizens.

Yet the U.S. is also susceptible to sabotage from Chinese agents. Indeed, there is a long history of America’s foes plotting attacks on our soil.

During World War I, agents from Imperial Germany plotted sabotage efforts in the U.S. In 1916, they succeeded in blowing up a U.S. munitions depot on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor, murdering four people and destroying more than $500 million worth of military goods.

The Cold War similarly saw Soviet agents operating extensively inside the U.S. Documents smuggled by Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who defected to the West with his files in 1996, revealed that the Soviet spy agency had planned acts of sabotage and disruption on American soil if the two superpowers went to war. Military bases, missile sites, radar installations, and oil pipelines were among the prospective targets. As part of their cover, KGB operatives ran hotels and gas stations, among other ventures, near the U.S.-Mexico border. They also hid weapons throughout the U.S.

There is little reason to think that China would be any different. Chinese industrial espionage and influence operations have attracted welcome, if belated, attention from the U.S. and its allies. But the risk of sabotage has largely flown under the radar. As recently as February 2023, Beijing severed undersea internet cables on Taiwan’s outlying islands, depriving thousands of internet access.

American infrastructure is in a pitiable state. Recent months have seen high-profile train derailments, chemical spills, and other signs of disrepair. It’s a safe assumption that Beijing has taken notice as well.

In January 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a strategic action plan calling to safeguard the U.S. from the CCP. The report contains 20 pages of recommendations and warns that "the growing threats from the People’s Republic of China cause new risks to the American people, the Homeland, American security and prosperity, and the American way of life."

This must be a priority. As China select committee Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) told me, if China invades Taiwan, the U.S. should assume that the homeland will be attacked and that part of the House select committee on China’s role “is to ensure the Department of Defense and the private sector are moving with a sense of urgency to harden this critical infrastructure before it’s too late.”

The writer is a Washington, D.C.-based foreign affairs analyst. His views are his own.