The House committee in charge of government oversight is launching a large-scale investigation into what lawmakers say is a “political warfare” campaign against the federal government and the entire American system by Beijing.
The Republican-led probe is focusing initially on nine federal agencies and whether Chinese agents and supporters infiltrated or influenced their policies and operations.
“Without firing a single bullet, the Chinese Communist Party is waging war against the U.S. by targeting, influencing and infiltrating every economic sector and community in America,” said Rep. James Comer, chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability. The panel “has a responsibility to ensure the federal government is taking every action necessary to protect Americans from the CCP’s ongoing political warfare,” he said in announcing the probe.
Mr. Comer said the coordinated Chinese government influence and infiltration campaign threatens U.S. military readiness, U.S. technology and intellectual property, financial markets, the agriculture industry and educational institutions. All have been targeted by the Chinese regime, he said.
“The lives and security of all Americans are affected,” said Mr. Comer, Kentucky Republican.
The investigation is the first of its kind in the U.S. and follows similar government-wide investigations into Chinese influence operations in Australia and Britain over the past several years. Those investigations identified several government officials as having direct links to the Chinese government and Chinese military.
The Oversight Committee’s probe will investigate Chinese influence at the Justice Department, Agriculture Department, Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the agency that runs official U.S. broadcasting outlets. Critics in Congress have said the media agency has been a special target of foreign influence operations
Also to be scrutinized are the Treasury Department, NASA, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Science Foundation.
‘Tip of the iceberg’
The committee’s investigative team briefed reporters on the probe, with one aide calling the China-owned video-sharing app TikTok “just the tip of the iceberg” of Beijing‘s massive influence operations.
The House this week approved with bipartisan support a bill to either ban TikTok or force its Chinese owner to divest from the platform, which is now being considered in the Senate.
“The Chinese Communist Party is currently waging a successful non-kinetic war against the United States by targeting, influencing and infiltrating American communities,” one committee aide said.
Mr. Comer, in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, said the People’s Republic of China is following the script of two colonels who wrote a book called “Unrestricted Warfare,” advocating the use of all means available to defeat China‘s “main enemy,” the United States.
“As all Americans are targets of the PRC’s warfare, federal agencies have responsibilities to (1) conduct outreach to citizens about the dangers they may encounter; and (2) provide appropriate incentives for Americans to proactively protect themselves — their communities, schools, houses of worship, businesses, finances, food, and more — from the threat,” Mr. Comer said.
The Justice Department needs to take steps against the political warfare and infiltration by Beijing, he said.
The Justice Department “has been vulnerable to CCP psychological warfare, warping its response to criticism of the enforcement of our country’s national security laws,” he argued, noting the Biden administration’s cancellation of a program started under the Trump administration to specifically target China‘s spies and agents working in the U.S. The chairman is asking Justice Department leaders to provide a briefing on what the department is doing to educate and train employees to be aware of China‘s political activities.
In a letter to Amanda Bennett, director of USAGM, the federal broadcaster, Mr. Comer said the ruling Communist Party is engaged in a “concerted effort to infiltrate and control media coverage and mass communications beyond [China‘s] borders, including in the United States.”
The USAGM must do more to counter Chinese narratives and disseminate news and information that support freedom and democracy, he stated.
“USAGM has responsibility in exposing CCP influence operations at home and abroad, as well as in advancing American interests in its coverage of the CCP,” Mr. Comer said.
Targeting sectors
Mr. Comer warned that China is influencing U.S. environmental policies through a focus on organizations in the United States.
“Troubling connections between the CCP and various non-governmental organizations in the United States reveal that U.S. environmental and energy policy has, in fact, been influenced by the party,” Comer said in a letter to EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan.
To NASA chief Bill Nelson, Mr. Comer noted the American space agency is barred from cooperating with China in outer space by law. However, the growing commercial space industry has no similar prohibitions, and the links could help Beijing obtain valuable technology and research from privately-held companies such as SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic that are working with NASA.
“Despite these risks, NASA is encouraging scientists it funds to apply to China‘s space agency to access the 1.7 kilograms of lunar soil gathered by China in a sample-retrieving mission in 2020,” Mr. Comer said. “By doing so, NASA is encouraging American scientists to traverse loopholes to avoid a U.S. law, which prohibits the use of NASA funds for projects with China, or Chinese-owned companies.”
A letter from Mr. Comer to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said China is working with “triads” – organized crime groups inside China – to launder money, “thus advancing united front goals to weaken American communities and interests.”
On Chinese purchases of U.S. farmland, Mr. Comer said in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack that China is trying to infiltrate the U.S. farm sector, calling the attempt “alarming.”
Strategies of war
Committee staff said Chinese influence operations grew out of political and economic warfare strategies that include large-scale cyberattacks, Chinese government-linked purchases of U.S. farmland, including some near military bases, Communist Party-funded educational programs aimed at influencing students, and theft of research and intellectual property.
“There are disturbing indications that the federal bureaucracy has become complacent,” one aide said. “Departments and agencies need to be taking immediate action to thwart China‘s campaign.”
Federal agencies need stronger defenses and increased coordination to identify and halt the influence operations, and more is needed to protect critical U.S. infrastructure from Chinese sabotage. Intelligence officials have said China has conducted reconnaissance of computer networks used by privately owned American utilities and other critical infrastructure in preparation for possible future attacks.
The investigation also will seek to identify and close gaps within federal agencies needed to counter Chinese efforts to weaken the United States, the aides said. Additional work will be conducted in looking into the security measures of other agencies beyond the initial nine agencies that are part of the initial investigation.
“The CCP has sought to destroy the U.S. on the global stage through coordinated influence and infiltration campaigns, and Congress can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines,” the aide said.
A senior Oversight Committee aide said the House and Senate itself are not part of this investigation.
“We don’t look internally to Congress. We have an Ethics Committee for that,” the aide said.
Most of China‘s foreign influence operations are conducted by a shadowy party organization called the United Front Work Department.
Little research on the United Front has been published by either the U.S. government or private-sector think tanks. One report by the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission last year said President Xi Jinping over the past decade “directed a wide-ranging effort to enhance the potency and reach of China‘s overseas influence activities.”
“Aiming to discredit the CCP’s critics while inducing others to advance its strategic goals, these activities involve a variety of agencies within the party-state, as well as proxies who further its initiatives in foreign countries, often — but not always — unwittingly,” the report said
Major targets of United Front operations include foreign media, politicians, businesses, academic institutions and ethnically Chinese citizens and residents living and working abroad. The operations go beyond soft power methods and include “harmful, aggressive, and at times illegal overseas influence efforts,” the commission said.
Bribery and threats of violence against office holder and candidates for public office have been identified as well as harassment of foreign media reporters and intimidation of overseas Chinese through the use of informants and by issuing threats against family members in China.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.