The Chinese Communist Party has become increasingly audacious in its attempts to infiltrate, influence, and outmaneuver the United States on various technological fronts. In this environment of heightened competition, the Biden-Harris administration’s decision to dismantle the Trump-era China Initiative was a grave misstep.
The CCP has spent the last several decades guaranteeing itself a foothold in American industries, from steel to farming to medicine. In 2015, the CCP sponsored a program called “Made in China 2025,” outlining 10 industries critical to making China dominate in high-tech manufacturing and authorizing intellectual property theft to expedite their success.
Since then, Chinese companies have stolen IP from every sector of the U.S. economy, costing it between $250 billion and $600 billion per year.
Recognizing this threat, the Trump administration instituted the China Initiative, a program aimed at countering these security threats by identifying and prosecuting people engaged in espionage and intellectual property theft. This initiative played a critical role in safeguarding our national infrastructure from covert Chinese operations and raised awareness of China’s influence and investment in U.S. academia in particular.
One of the most glaring examples of the CCP’s efforts to infiltrate the U.S. is the Thousand Talents Plan, a Chinese program linked to IP theft within U.S. academic institutions. This program is designed to attract high-caliber researchers from across the globe but operates under a veil of secrecy. Under the China Initiative, several American scientists were prosecuted for hiding their affiliations with this program and transferring valuable research to China without disclosure.
These are not isolated incidents but part of the CCP’s grand strategy. The FBI has more than 2,000 active investigations linked to the Chinese government, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The China Initiative was designed as a response to this mounting evidence and identified nearly 60 cases of hacking, spying, and false statements in grant applications.
The Justice Department’s decision to end the initiative in 2022 leaves us without an expedient program to combat CCP-linked threats to our innovation and economic security effectively.
That’s why the House of Representatives this week will vote on the Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from the CCP Act. I introduced this legislation to establish a “CCP Initiative,” similar to the Trump-era China Initiative, within the Justice Department to protect our critical infrastructure from Chinese investment and lawfully identify and prosecute espionage activity.
Under this bill, the newly formed CCP Initiative would prioritize identifying and prosecuting instances of trade theft, espionage, and unlawful technology transfers while also creating a comprehensive federal enforcement strategy that focuses on safeguarding the U.S. defense industry, research laboratories, and universities.
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Additionally, this legislation enhances collaboration between the Justice Department and the FBI to ensure a unified strategy to counter the CCP. The bill would also require the attorney general to submit annual reports to Congress detailing the progress of the initiative’s objectives, resource allocation, interagency coordination, and overall impact on CCP espionage efforts.
The CCP Initiative is necessary to preserve the integrity of our institutions, the independence of our industries, and the values that define us as a nation. As America navigates this new Cold War against China, we must ensure that our arsenal contains more than bombs and missiles. We have to be prepared to fight a technological and intellectual war of innovation, and the CCP Initiative could be our weapon that turns the tide.