China’s
actions against the United States can be seen in more than just unfair trade
and armaments. Beijing is waging an intensive effort to reshape American
education and politics to suit its own needs. Little reported, this is the most
significant assault on the U.S.’s culture of freedom ever waged, far surpassing
anything done by the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo addressed the crisis at a meeting of the National Governors
Association this month.
[I was at an event] co-hosted by the
National Governors Association and something called the Chinese People’s
Association For Friendship and Foreign Countries. Sounds pretty harmless.
What the invitation did not say is that the
group – the group I just mentioned – is the public face of the Chinese
Communist Party’s official foreign influence agency, the United Front Work
Department.
Now, I was lucky. I was familiar with that
organization from my time as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But it got me thinking.
How many of you made the link between that
group and Chinese Communist Party officials?
What if you made a new friend while you
were at that event?
What if your new friend asked you for
introductions to other politically connected and powerful people?
What if your new friend offered to invest
big money in your state, perhaps in your pension, in industries sensitive to
our national security?
These aren’t hypotheticals. These scenarios
are all too true, and they impact American foreign policy significantly.
Indeed, last year, a Chinese
Government-backed think tank in Beijing produced a report that assessed all 50
of America’s governors on their attitudes towards China. They labeled each of
you “friendly,” “hardline,” or “ambiguous.”
I’ll let you decide where you think you
belong. Someone in China already has. Many of you, indeed, in that report are
referenced by name.
So here’s the lesson: The lesson is that
competition with China is not just a federal issue. It’s why I wanted to be
here today, Governor Hogan. It’s happening in your states with consequences for
our foreign policy, for the citizens that reside in your states, and indeed,
for each of you.
And, in fact, whether you are viewed by the
CCP as friendly or hardline, know that it’s working you, know that it’s working
the team around you.
Competition with China is happening inside
of your state, and it affects our capacity to perform America’s vital national
security functions.
I want to set the context today for this
topic.
At the end of the Cold War, America started
to engage with China heavily. It made good sense. We thought that the more we
interacted, the more it would become like a liberal democracy, like us here in
the United States.
It didn’t happen, and you all know this.
Indeed, under Xi Jinping, the country is
moving exactly in the opposite direction – more repression, more unfair
competition, more predatory economic practices; indeed, a more aggressive
military posture as well.
You should know this doesn’t mean we can’t
do business with China. You can see that in the first part of the trade deal
that President Trump got done, signed last month.
We’re happy about that. It was the right
thing to do. That was indeed a deal that was good for both the United States
and China. And these economic ties are powerful. They’re important and good.
They’re good for your state; they’re good for America.
But while there are places we can
cooperate, we can’t ignore China’s actions and strategic intentions. If we do,
we risk the important components of our relationship that benefit both
countries.
The Chinese Government has been methodical
in the way it’s analyzed our system. It’s assessed our vulnerabilities, and
it’s decided to exploit our freedoms to gain advantage over us at the federal
level, the state level, and the local level.
What China does in Topeka and Sacramento
reverberates in Washington, in Beijing, and far beyond. Competition with China
is happening. It’s happening in your state.
In fact, I would be surprised if most of
you in the audience have not been lobbied by the Chinese Communist Party
directly.
Chinese Communist Party friendship
organizations like the one that I referenced earlier are in Richmond;
Minneapolis; Portland; Jupiter, Florida; and many other cities around the
country.
But sometimes China’s activities aren’t
quite that public Let me read you an excerpt of a letter from a Chinese
diplomat. It was China’s Consul General in New York sent a letter last month to
the speaker of one of your state legislatures.
Here’s what the letter said in part. It
said, quote, “As we all know, Taiwan is part of China… avoid engaging in any
official contact with Taiwan, including sending congratulatory messages to the
electeds, introducing bills and proclamations for the election, sending
officials and representatives to attend the inauguration ceremony, and inviting
officials in Taiwan to visit the United States.” End of quote from the letter.
Think about that. You had a diplomat from
China assigned here to the United States, a representative of the Chinese
Communist Party in New York City, sending an official letter urging that an
American elected official shouldn’t exercise his right to freedom of speech.
Let that sink in for just a minute.
And this isn’t a one-off event. It’s
happening all across the country.
Chinese consulates in New York, in
Illinois, in Texas, and two in California, bound by the diplomatic
responsibilities and rights of the Vienna Convention, are very politically
active at the state level, as is the embassy right here in Washington, D.C.
Maybe some of you have heard about the time
when the Chinese consulate paid the UC-San Diego students to protest the Dalai
Lama.
Or last August, when former governor Phil
Bryant of Mississippi received a letter from a diplomat in the consul’s office
in Houston, threatening to cancel a Chinese investment if the governor chose to
travel to Taiwan. Phil went anyway.
Last year, a high school – a high school, a
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It’s one thing to pressure the Secretary of
State of the United States of America. It seems quite something else to go
after a high school principal. It shows depth. It shows systemization. It shows
intent.
Chinese Communist Party officials, too, are
cultivating relationships with county school board members and local
politicians – often through what are known as sister cities programs.
Look, this Chinese competition is something you all know. It sits in the
back of your mind. But you have many duties and you are busy people. But this
competition is well underway. And while these might seem like local matters to
some, the cumulative effect is of enormous national importance and
international significance.
Of course, too, our public educational
institutions are another arena of competition with China.
I know, governors, you don’t run these
institutions on a day-to-day basis, but you often have impact on the people
that do. The FBI director and I think the Attorney General, too, talked
yesterday about something called the “Thousand Talents Plan.” It’s a plan to
recruit scientists and professors to transfer the know-how we have here to
China in exchange for enormous paydays.
The program has probably targeted campuses
in your state. Indeed, the Department of Justice has indicted professors in my
home state at the University of Kansas and at Virginia Tech and at Harvard.
A Texas A&M investigation reportedly
discovered more than 100 academics participating in Chinese talent recruitment
plans. Only five of them had declared that they were participating in this
program.
And goodness knows what else we have not
discovered.
There are indeed very credible reports of
Chinese Government officials pressuring Chinese students – students studying
right here in the United States of America – to monitor fellow Chinese students
and to report back to Beijing.
One very prominent pro-democracy Chinese
student on a college campus in the Northeast last year received death threats –
death threats for exercising his right to free speech. The FBI became involved.
Look, that’s just one of many campus groups
directly influenced by the Chinese Communist Party and its representatives
right here in the United States.
Many of you are familiar with Confucius
Institutes. Confucius Institutes purport to have the sole purpose of teaching
Mandarin language skills and Chinese culture. A bipartisan Senate committee
found last year in 2019 that the Chinese Communist Party controls nearly every
aspect of the Confucius Institutes’ activities here in the United States.
Over the past few months, the University of
Missouri, the University of Kansas, the University of Maryland have
independently decided to close down their Confucius Institutes after conducting
their own reviews, and schools in 22 other states are doing or have already
done the same.
Sadly, China’s propaganda campaign starts
even earlier than college. China has targeted K through 12 schools through its
“Confucius Classrooms,” the CCP’s program to influence kids at elementary,
middle, and high schools around the world.
Do you know that we have no ability to
establish similar programs in China? I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you.
President Trump has talked about reciprocity in trade. We should have
reciprocity in all things. Today they have free rein in our system, and we’re
completely shut out from theirs.
As of 2017, there were 519 of these
classrooms in the United States. Beijing knows that today’s kids are tomorrow’s
leaders.
The China competition is happening. It’s
happening in your states, and it’s a competition that goes to the very basic
freedoms that every one of us values.
I know you all have power over pension
funds or the people that run them. As of its latest public filing, the Florida
Retirement System is invested in a company that in turn is invested in
surveillance gear that the Chinese Communist Party uses to track more than 1
million Muslim minorities. California’s pension fund, the largest public
pension fund in the country, is invested in companies that supply the People’s
Liberation Army that puts our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines at risk.
And it is the case for many Chinese companies,
too. Their books are not wide open, so it’s difficult to know if the
transaction that’s being engaged in is transparent and fair and follows the
rule of law.
The question is: Do they demonstrate good
judgment and preserve America’s national security?
I want to urge vigilance on the local
level, too. In the District of Columbia, there have been concerns raised that
the new Metro cards manufactured by China could be vulnerable to cyber threats.
So again, it’s worth trusting but
verifying. There are federal officials prepared to help you work your way
through these challenges when they arise. Don’t make separate individual deals
and agreements with China that undermine our national policy. I know none of
you would do so intentionally. Let us help you make sure we’re getting it
right.
The Trump administration wants to help.
There are so many things we have already done.
Last year, we issued a letter to state
governments. It reaffirmed that Taiwan remains a key business partner and a
friend in every other way.
We have strengthened the review process for
Chinese companies that are investing in your states.
We have revoked visas for so-called
“research scholars” who abused their privileges by teaching in Confucius
Classrooms, and made sure that they departed the United States.
We’ve banned scientists from the Department
of Energy, which overseas America’s 17 largest national – excuse me, nuke labs,
including our nuclear research facility in New Mexico. We did so because they
were participating in Chinese talent recruitment programs.
We have directed two Chinese propaganda
outlets, the Chinese Global Television Network and Xinhua News Agency, to
register as foreign agents.
And we at the State Department have started
to require Chinese diplomats to apply – comply with the same rules we comply
with when we’re in China. Chinese diplomats now must notify the State
Department in advance of official meetings with state and local officials.
They must declare their official visits to
U.S. educational and research institutions as well.
This is just fairness, reciprocity, basic
common sense. This is not an onerous restriction to put on China.
It’s what we do as Americans.
Illustration: Pixabay
