For leadership on China, look outside “the swamp”

Americans should be forgiven if they are confused about how they should feel about China.

Following the recent announcement by the People’s Republic of China that it had successfully tested nuclear weapons-capable hypersonic missiles, Biden administration Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the United States “welcomed the competition.”

This is the same Chinese government which has repeatedly lied to the World Health Organization, and the rest of the world, about the Wuhan virus. China sealed off Wuhan province from domestic travel once the virus became widely known but allowed international travel to continue. And China continues to refuse to cooperate with international investigations and research into the virus.

Americans can be forgiven if they don’t realize the extent to which the economic miracle of China over the past 35 year has been used to create a massive, modern, military machine aimed squarely at the United States. This same machine has been facilitated by U.S. short-sightedness. At least half of Washington D.C. and most of Wall Street continues to shower U.S. citizens with happy talk about the peaceful rise of China, while facilitating the transfer of technological know-how and billions of dollars to the Chinese economy. While many of our leaders exclusively portray this involvement with China as a great investment opportunity and not a threat, the reality is becoming more difficult to hide as the Chinese government threatens to nuke Japan “continuously”, and stepped up its military intimidation of Taiwan.

Despite this, we have a president who has said nary a harsh word about China. Given Biden’s son Hunter’s prolific history of questionable business dealings with China, it raises serious questions about the Biden Administration’s willingness or ability to address this growing issue.

Some elected officials realize the nefarious nature of the Chinese Communist Party. Americans everywhere can look to leaders in Texas and Florida for how we must deal with an increasingly powerful, and increasingly belligerent, China.

In Florida, Governor DeSantis signed into law legislation aimed squarely at Chinese influence operations. The new law requires greater disclosure of foreign support for public entities, scrutiny of grant applicants and vendors of goods and services with certain foreign connections, and thorough scrutiny of foreign applicants for research positions and of foreign travel and activities of employees of major state research institutions.

This law is necessary because China has used the largesse from its international business activities to infiltrate U.S. businesses and universities to influence personnel and steal technology and intellectual property.

Also in Florida, DeSantis signed into law legislation that requires high schools in the state to educate students about communism and other totalitarian political ideologies that conflict with the United States’ principles of freedom.

In Texas, Senator Angela Paxton authored a resolution condemning China’s gruesome practice of organ harvesting—a horrific practice carried out as part of a systematic government policy.

Also in Texas, Senator Donna Campbell teamed up with Senator Paxton and others to pass an important bill that prohibits contracts or other agreements with certain foreign-owned companies in connection with critical infrastructure in Texas. The law is clearly aimed at China, whose equipment has managed to infiltrate critical infrastructure across America. More states need to take this same action.

Both Florida and Texas have both previously made progress towards combating another insidious form of subversion by the Chinese government. In 2019 Florida became the first state to completely shutter all the Confucius Institutes at universities in the state. These Chinese government-run institutes were supposed to be centers of cultural exchange but have actually turned out to be dens of subversion, communist propaganda and outright espionage. These institutes continue to operate on numerous college campuses across America, despite warnings from the US Department of Defense. Texas has begun to take action; Texas A&M and Prairie View A&M both shut down their Confucius Institutes, but they continue to operate at the University of Texas at Dallas and Texas Southern University.

China is the last, but extremely powerful, bastion of the evil communist ideology that President Ronald Reagan said belonged in the “ash bin of history.” And while we hope for future leadership of Reagan’s caliber in the White House to confront the Chinese regime, right now leadership rests at the state level.