Ending the Chinese regime’s corruption of our politics

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) intelligence operations against the West are well known.

Washington Times journalist Bill Gertz’s reporting on the penetration of U.S. nuclear laboratories led to the loss of U.S. nuclear secrets with disastrous consequences for the national security of the United States. That China had access to crown jewels of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including its most advanced warheads, has allowed China to field an advanced arsenal targeted at the United States and its allies and partners.

The magnitude of the damage to U.S. security can only be rivaled by the original Soviet penetration of the Manhattan Project, which led to the Soviet acquisition of nuclear weapons in 1949.

As shattering as these intelligence operations are, what is even more pernicious is the corruption of politics with China’s money. Money provides China with profound influence and contributes to the demoralization of the American people in their political system and political culture. The contempt with which Americans hold their elected officials is due to many causes, but perhaps foremost is the influence the Chinese regime buys through legal and illegal means.

The corruption of U.S. politics by Chinese money is not new. The White House “coffees” and Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers that President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore hosted from 1995–1996 served as an indicator. They included Charlie Trie, who sought to expand his business in China, and John Huang, who had ties to the Lippo Group, which also sought to expand into China. Huang had met with the Chinese ambassador at his residence in Washington to discuss donations to the Democratic Party, according to media accounts. Huang was also responsible for Gore’s visit to a fundraiser at a California Buddhist temple. Gore later denied knowing that it was a fundraiser.

At about the same time, defense contractors Hughes and Loral were permitted to share knowledge regarding satellite and missile technology and reentry vehicles that aided China’s military space and nuclear weapons programs. Many details of this were released in 1999 in a congressional committee report headed by then-Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Minn.). At the time, the Cox Report stated that China had engaged in a 20-year intelligence collection campaign to steal U.S. nuclear weapons secrets, as well as information processing, aircraft, guidance, and missile technologies. The Cox Report identified that Beijing had been robustly targeting U.S. technologies since at least 1979, when U.S. diplomatic recognition gave China greater access to the United States.

The United States is far from alone. In almost every country, Chinese money brings power and influence through many different tactics and approaches, but that often starts as an investment. Ireland’s Immigrant Investor Programme is a good example of the “thin edge of the wedge” strategy. About 90 percent of the investors are from China or Hong Kong and have contributed more than $1.25 billion since it was created in 2012. Chinese money flows into the Irish economy in return for residency. With the investment comes a dependency on China and Hong Kong to sustain the investment and, thus, economic and political influence. Variations of this tool are but some of the ways the Chinese regime has used its wealth to enrich a few but corrupt the politics of countries around the globe.

Wall Street and Silicon Valley are far from immune. Indeed, they serve as conduits even more helpful than Hughes or Loral did in the 1990s. Today, firms like Sequoia Capital and a host of others provide capital to Chinese entities. Thus, they have an interest in those entities succeeding. But they also make donations to U.S. politicians and both parties.

This cycle creates two fundamental problems for U.S. national security and its ability to respond to the China threat. The first is that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned in a significant advisory to American businesses about the risks associated with trade with Chinese entities. The advisory noted the persistent and increasing risk of CCP-sponsored data theft due to newly enacted Chinese laws, including the National Intelligence Law of 2017, the Data Security Law of 2020, and the Cryptology Law of 2020. These laws compel Chinese businesses and citizens—including academic institutions, research service providers, and investors—to support and facilitate the Chinese regime’s access to the collection, transmission, and storage of data. In sum, they compel Chinese entities to permit spying by China against the entities’ foreign partners.

The second problem is even more profound than intelligence collection. As Chinese entities succeed, communist China becomes more powerful and so better able to supplant the United States and U.S. interests, while spying on their foreign partners. In return, they provide a return to their venture capitalists, and Wall Street and Silicon Valley continue to donate to Democrats and Republicans. This is the heart of the problem. China grows in power due to U.S. capital investment—capital that should go to U.S. and allied firms to aid them rather than the enemy of the United States—while those entities spy on all foreigners associated with them. Bipartisan donations keep this going and spare the venture capitalists and others from adequate oversight. If it is not resolved, then the United States and its allies are in existential peril.

The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has created a committee under Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) to investigate the threat from the CCP. One of the top items of its long agenda must be to end U.S. investment in China, including by the Thrift Savings Plan—the retirement savings and investment plan of U.S. federal employees, including the U.S. military—and terminate the ability of Beijing to raise capital on U.S. markets.

McCarthy must let Gallagher’s committee do its work, especially as this will lead to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Additional measures forward would be to compel U.S. entities to acknowledge the liabilities they invite to China’s laws and, thus, the vulnerabilities and risks U.S. entities, their investors, and their customers incur. This will require that Wall Street and Silicon Valley change their behavior—a difficult but supremely important step. It will also require that both political parties do as well—no doubt, even more challenging. Both parties must pledge that they will not accept donations from entities invested in China.

Just as pressure was brought on U.S. firms to end investment in apartheid South Africa, so too should U.S. entities face the same opprobrium regarding China. Just as parties would not take donations from communists or communist front organizations during the Cold War, so too should they not accept them from communists or those entities they control during the present cold war.