House oversight panel launches wide-ranging probe into Chinese influence operations in U.S.

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The House committee in charge of federal government oversight is launching a large-scale investigation into what lawmakers say is a Chinese “political warfare” campaign against the entire American system.

The Republican-led investigation is focusing initially on nine federal agencies and whether Chinese agents and supporters have 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, Kentucky Republican and chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee. 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 Thursday in announcing the investigation.

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. The Chinese regime has targeted all of them, he said, and “the lives and security of all Americans are affected.”

The investigation is the first of its kind in the U.S. and follows governmentwide investigations into Chinese influence operations in Australia and Britain over the past several years. Those investigations identified several government officials directly linked to the Chinese government and military.

The oversight committee will investigate Chinese influence at the Justice Department, Agriculture Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Agency for Global Media, which runs official U.S. broadcasting outlets. Critics in Congress have said the media agency is 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’

While the investigative team briefed reporters, one committee aide said the China-owned video-sharing app TikTok was “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. The legislation was sent to the Senate for consideration.

“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.

In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Mr. Comer said the People’s Republic of China is following the script of two colonels who wrote “Unrestricted Warfare,” a book 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 must take steps against Beijing’s political warfare and infiltration, 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 said.

Mr. Comer noted 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. He is asking Justice Department leaders to provide a briefing on education and training efforts to make employees aware of China’s political activities.

In a letter to Amanda Bennett, director of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, 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 agency must do more to counter Chinese narratives and to 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 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,” Mr. Comer said in a letter to EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan.

To NASA chief Bill Nelson, Mr. Comer noted that federal law prohibits the American space agency from cooperating with China in outer space. 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.”

Mr. Comer said in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack that China’s attempt to infiltrate the U.S. farm sector is “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 potential attacks.

The investigation also will try to identify and close gaps within federal agencies to counter Chinese efforts to weaken the United States, the aides said. Additional work will look into the security measures of agencies beyond the nine in 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 are not part of the 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.

The U.S. government and private-sector think tanks have published little research on the United Front. One report by the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission last year said Chinese President Xi Jinping has “directed a wide-ranging effort to enhance the potency and reach of China’s overseas influence activities” over the past decade.

“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 and include “harmful, aggressive, and at times illegal overseas influence efforts,” the commission said.

Bribery and threats of violence against officeholders and candidates for public office have been identified, foreign media reporters have been harassed, and threats against family members back home have been used to intimidate overseas Chinese.