Countering the Chinese Communist Party’s Espionage

Earlier this month, two U.S. Navy sailors in Southern California were arrested and accused of providing military secrets and sensitive information to Chinese intelligence officers.

This revelation is alarming and though it’s a relief that these perpetrators were caught, the truth is, the Biden Administration hasn’t prioritized countering Chinese espionage as they should.

Under the Trump Administration, the White House and the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched the China Initiative. The goal of this program was to combat economic espionage through inter-agency coordination—from regional FBI offices and U.S. Attorneys, to state and local law enforcement agencies— in investigating and prosecuting Chinese spies in American academia and industry. This program was critically important as it’s estimated that China’s theft of intellectual property costs the United States economy as much as $600 billion annually.

Despite this unbelievable figure, which carries severe national security implications, President Biden ended the initiative to appease his politically correct base. In response, I led my House Republican colleagues last Congress in introducing legislation to direct the U.S. Attorney General to issue an annual report on the DOJ’s activities related to countering Chinese national security threats. The content of the report would include information on trade secret theft, theft of United States intellectual property and research, and threats from non-traditional collectors, such as researchers in laboratories, at universities, and at defense industrial base facilities. The report would have provided an accounting of activities and resources the DOJ is utilizing to ensure it is still effectively countering the threat from China.

This legislation too received resistance from Democrats.

Which brings us to where we are today. The authoritarian Chinese Communist Party continues to mount an aggressive campaign against the U.S. and faces less resistance under the current administration than under Republican leadership. Countering Chinese aggression should be a top priority for Congress, and it is critical that the DOJ keeps up their efforts to identify and apprehend those who would seek to subvert our national system, conduct espionage, and prop up the Chinese Communist Party.