[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                           DEFENDING AMERICA
                   FROM THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY'S
                       POLITICAL WARFARE, PART I

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                             APRIL 17, 2024
                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-102
                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability


                  [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov

                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
55-455 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024   


               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida               Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York            Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida

                                 ------                                
                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
                 Margaret Harker, Deputy Chief Counsel
                        Kelsey Donohue, Counsel
                          Abby Salter, Counsel
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                                 ------                                

                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on April 17, 2024...................................     1

                               WITNESSES

                              ----------                              

Col. Grant Newsham (Ret.), Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps
    Oral Statement...............................................     7
Peter Mattis, President, Jamestown Foundation
    Oral Statement...............................................     9
Dr. Robert Spalding, Brig. Gen. (Ret.), Founder and CEO, SEMPRE
    Oral Statement...............................................    10
Dr. Timothy Snyder (Minority Witness), Richard C. Levin Professor 
  of History and Public Affairs, Yale University
    Oral Statement...............................................    12

 Opening statements and the prepared statements for the witnesses 
  are available in the U.S. House of Representatives Repository 
  at: docs.house.gov.

                           INDEX OF DOCUMENTS

                              ----------                              

  * Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Book Review, ``Timothy Snyder's Lies'', by Daniel Lazare; 
  submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Testimony of Christopher J. Urben, U.S. Senate hearing; 
  submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Article, NBC News, ``Neo-Nazi Jan. 6 Rioter Pleads Guilty''; 
  submitted by Rep. Crockett.

  * Article, Time Magazine, ``How a Far-Right Militia Uses 
  Facebook to Train New Members''; submitted by Rep. Greene.

  * Article, American Journal of Public Health, ``Association of 
  COVID-19 with Anti-Asian Sentiments on Twitter''; submitted by 
  Rep. Pressley.

  * Article, CBS News, ``The Azov Battalion''; submitted by Rep. 
  Raskin.

  * Fact Sheet, The President's Budget Confronts Global 
  Challenges and Defends Democracy; submitted by Rep. Raskin.

  * U.S.-Indo-Pacific-Strategy, White House; submitted by Rep. 
  Raskin.

  * Letter, to Attorney General Garland, Feb. 2, 2024, from 
  Members of Congress, re: Chinese Marijuana Farms; submitted by 
  Rep. Sessions.

  * Press Release, Treasury.gov, ``Treasury Targets Chinese 
  Network of Illicit Drug''; submitted by Rep. Sessions.

  * Article, Politico, ``Air Force Crew Made an Odd Stop on a 
  Routine Trip''; submitted by Rep. Tlaib.

  * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Spalding; submitted by Rep. 
  Donalds.

The documents listed are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                           DEFENDING AMERICA
                   FROM THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY'S
                       POLITICAL WARFARE, PART I

                              ----------                              


                       Wednesday, April 17, 2024

                     U.S. House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Comer 
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Comer, Grothman, Cloud, Palmer, 
Higgins, Sessions, Biggs, Mace, LaTurner, Fallon, Perry, 
Timmons, Burchett, Greene, McClain, Langworthy, Burlison, 
Raskin, Norton, Lynch, Krishnamoorthi, Khanna, Ocasio-Cortez, 
Porter, Brown, Stansbury, Garcia, Frost, Lee, Crockett, 
Goldman, Moskowitz, Tlaib, and Pressley.
    Chairman Comer. The hearing of the Committee on Oversight 
and Accountability will come to order. I want to welcome 
everyone.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    Today's hearing is an opportunity to understand what the 
Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, is and what it seeks to 
achieve in conducting warfare against the United States right 
now without having to fire a single shot. We will hear from 
three serious China experts, with decades of experience in U.S. 
intelligence, national security, and the military, about CCP 
political warfare. This will help the Committee understand what 
Federal agencies can and should be doing to safeguard the 
homeland.
    What is the CCP? It is the ruling authoritarian regime of 
China. While it is enslaving its own people in forced labor 
camps in China, it is also brazenly engaging in dozens of forms 
of warfare against America. Each warfare tactic seeks the 
destruction of our country. For decades, the CCP has sought to 
infiltrate and influence every aspect of American society. 
Chief among the party's tactics is political warfare. Political 
warfare is meant to influence the emotions, motives, and 
behavior of Americans in a manner favorable to China's 
objectives. By waging political warfare, the CCP seeks to 
weaken America so that we cannot effectively fight in a kinetic 
war.
    According to the CCP itself, the battlefield will be 
everywhere. It already is. American sectors and communities 
targeted by the CCP include farming, business, K-12 schools, 
universities, research institutions, technology, energy, food 
supply, the defense industry, critical infrastructure, consumer 
goods, ethnic groups, religious communities, media, social 
media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and more. By getting 
Americans dependent on cheap and sometimes dangerous goods made 
in China, digital fentanyl like TikTok and actual fentanyl, the 
CCP is determined to achieve its goal of defeating America on 
the global stage. If we do not understand what the CCP is and 
that this authoritarian regime considers America its main 
enemy, we cannot secure our country.
    The CCP's methods are unconventional and may be hard to 
recognize, but its destructive ambitions to manipulate American 
minds, conduct espionage, steal intellectual property and trade 
secrets, bring fentanyl into our country, and many, many more 
nefarious influence operations, are actively being pursued 
right under our noses. China's goal is plain: to defeat 
America. How does it seek to achieve this? Through the 
operations of the united front. Now, what is the united front? 
It is a coalition used by the Chinese Communist Party to 
control, mobilize, and use nonmembers to advance CCP aims. 
These networks are organized in the United Front Work 
Department and dispersed throughout the entire party. General 
Secretary Xi has described the united front as the CCP's magic 
weapon.
    The united front carries out relationship-focused influence 
campaigns through a multitude of proxies found in the business 
community, amongst cultural and political leaders, and in other 
influential circles in America and around the world to advance 
CCP interests. These proxies are individuals or entities used 
and manipulated by the united front to do the CCP's bidding for 
it. Why bother doing the dirty work yourself when you can co-
opt and influence people to knowingly or unknowingly advance 
the CCP's interest for it?
    One of the most destructive of the CCP's tactics is the 
crusade to intentionally divide Americans, often by 
exacerbating existing societal divisions. To be clear, it is 
the Chinese Communist Party who is to blame here, not people of 
Chinese descent who themselves are often singled out using 
these exact same CCP war tactics. To be even more blunt, to say 
that it is somehow racist or inappropriate for Congress to 
investigate the CCP threat is playing directly into the CCP's 
hands, and people who use this tactic are doing exactly what 
the CCP wants in order to avoid scrutiny or accountability for 
the CCP.
    Government agencies have important responsibilities to the 
many American communities and sectors targeted by the CCP. The 
Oversight Committee's message to Federal agencies is this. The 
threat from the CCP is grave. You must step up and recognize 
what the CCP is seeking to do to our country. If agencies do 
not see that the CCP is our adversary, they cannot effectively 
counter China when it targets the American communities for whom 
the Federal Government is responsible. The Office of the 
Director of National Intelligence consistently recognizes the 
CCP as the threat to American security and our economy, yet too 
many agencies are not doing enough because they do not have a 
China strategy, creative solutions, and proactive aggressive 
methods.
    Our colleagues in the Minority appear uninterested in 
addressing CCP unrestricted warfare. Instead, of any number of 
experts on China who they could have invited, they have instead 
invited a professor whose expertise is in European history and 
Russia. Russia is, of course, an important issue, as anyone 
following the news can tell you. Vladimir Putin is a threat, a 
brute, and no friend to America, but I would not invite one of 
our China experts to talk about St. Petersburg and Moscow. And 
if Democrats do not want to confront the threat of the Chinese 
Communist Party's political warfare against the United States, 
I believe that is a serious mistake. It is a mistake because 
Democrats are doing exactly what the CCP expects from American 
politicians: argue among ourselves or look the other way and 
not confront the CCP's influence and infiltration tactics.
    The Nation faces a real threat from CCP manipulation. It is 
a quiet, yet pervasive and dangerous threat that affects 
Americans every day. This Committee seeks to confront that 
threat, but Republicans are not going to stop Democrats from 
beclowning themselves talking about Russia during a hearing on 
China. While they seek to distract from our discussion about 
CCP influence, we will tackle the Chinese Communist Party's 
campaign to influence and weaken our country.
    The solutions agencies adopt must not only eliminate CCP 
infiltration and influence from our country, they must help 
inspire and equip Americans to strengthen their communities, 
innovate, and create the technologies and phenomena that will 
secure a strong and prosperous future for our Nation. Strong 
American communities can resist even the most aggressive CCP 
political warfare, and as we resist CCP unrestricted warfare, 
we must remain a free society, bound by the Constitution. I 
thank the witnesses for appearing here today and look forward 
to their testimony. I now yield to the Ranking Member for his 
opening statement.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. Authoritarian 
states use propaganda to dehumanize their victims and to mask 
their brutality. The propagandist's purpose, Aldous Huxley 
said, is to ``make one set of people forget that another set of 
people is human.'' Today, for example, Vladimir Putin tries to 
make people forget about the humanity of 38 million Ukrainians 
that he wants to control. He tries to make people forget about 
Alexei Navalny, whom he poisoned, falsely imprisoned, and 
killed. The Chinese Government tries to make people forget 
about the humanity of millions of Tibetans and Uyghurs, who 
President Xi mercilessly persecutes, incarcerates, and 
represses. But with their intensive programs of propaganda 
today, the autocrats seek not only to subdue their own 
populations, but to confuse and demoralize people who live in 
democratic societies.
    Today's hearing is about China's political warfare, but 
China exists as part of an axis of authoritarian powers and 
parties, the center of which is Russia, whose propaganda 
playbook the CCP studies carefully and increasingly imitates 
and follows. In the struggle between democracy and 
authoritarianism today, the central military battlefield is, of 
course, Ukraine, which has been invaded and hammered by Putin. 
More than 10,000 civilians have been killed and 12 million 
people have been driven from their homes. Russia spreads terror 
with rape, child kidnapping, torture, and murder, and China is 
assisting Russia in this filthy war of aggression by helping 
Putin rebuild its military industrial complex, and China is 
watching closely what happens in Ukraine.
    As Prime Minister Kishida of Japan told us on the Floor 
last week, the Ukraine of today may be the East Asia of 
tomorrow. But if Ukraine is the central military battlefield in 
the showdown, the democratic societies of the world are the 
central psychological and political battlegrounds as the 
tyrants inject lies and disinformation into our politics. For a 
decade now, our intelligence community, law enforcement, and 
national security agencies have warned of the systematic and 
pervasive efforts by Vladimir Putin, his intelligence 
operatives, his internet research agency, and his allies to 
destabilize our politics, sabotage our campaigns, affect our 
election outcomes, and poison our society with divisive racial, 
ethnic, religious, and ideological propaganda.
    Just this morning, Mr. Chairman, the Washington Post 
reported on a secret document written by Russia's foreign 
ministry that leaked out. As the article explains, ``Russia is 
seeking to subvert Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the 
domestic politics of the United States and European countries 
through propaganda campaigns, supporting isolationist, and 
extremist policies.'' Russia's foreign ministry says that 
Ukraine is the main crucible of our times. According to the 
Post, the document says, ``The outcome of Russia's war in 
Ukraine will, to a great degree, determine the outlines of the 
future world order,'' a clear indication Moscow sees the result 
of its invasion as inextricably bound up with its ability and 
that of other authoritarian nations to impose its will 
globally. Ukraine is where the world must stand against tyranny 
today.
    And now China is following Russia very closely. An article 
this month in the Washington Post, titled, ``China is Advancing 
Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election'' raises alarm, it says, 
``In an echo of Russia's influence campaign before the 2016 
election, China now appears to be trying to harness partisan 
divisions in America to undermine Biden Administration's 
policies.'' The Foundation for Defense of Democracies 
identified, as part of this effort, 170 inauthentic pages and 
accounts on Facebook that have been pushing anti-American 
messages, including pointed attacks on President Biden.
    Many of these disinformation notes bring Chinese and 
Russian propaganda together to undermine U.S. foreign policy. 
``In February, according to the Institute for Strategic 
Dialogue, a Chinese account on X, calling itself a Western name 
alongside a MAGA 2024 reference, shared a video from RT, the 
Russian Television Network controlled by the Kremlin, to claim 
that Mr. Biden and the CIA had sent a neo-Nazi gangster to 
fight in Ukraine.'' The narrative was debunked by the 
investigative group Bellingcat. But the very next day, the post 
received an enormous boost when Alex Jones, the podcaster known 
for spreading false claims and conspiracy theories, shared it 
on his platform with 2.2 million followers.
    This kind of Chinese-Russian MAGA propaganda and 
disinformation circuit now penetrates Congress itself. For 
example, Putin is trying to stop the democracies from helping 
Ukraine by claiming that his war of conquest is really meant to 
remove Nazis from power, ``denazification'' he calls it. He 
invites us to believe that Ukraine is a Nazi state even though 
it is actually a liberal representative democracy committed to 
the equal rights of all of its citizens, and even though the 
people chose as their President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the only 
Jewish person serving as a president anywhere in the world 
outside of the state of Israel. Yet the denazification myth has 
spread to the MAGA precincts of Congress.
    Just this week, one of our colleagues on the Committee, who 
was trying to topple the speaker of the House this week because 
he wants to allow a fair Floor vote on a security package to 
Ukraine, recycled a defamatory lie about Ukraine. She tweeted, 
``It is antisemitic to make Israeli aid contingent on funding 
Ukrainian Nazis.'' I learned of this tweet from an outraged 
Ukrainian-American constituent whose Christian family was 
involved in saving Ukrainian Jews from both Hitler and Stalin. 
She said it was ``painful beyond words to see Marjorie Taylor 
Greene publicly slandering Ukrainians, who are only trying to 
protect their fellow citizens from Russian mass murder.''
    A similar disinformation ploy fundamentally distorted the 
work of our own Committee over the last year. The key evidence 
in this Committee's protracted impeachment quest, Alexander 
Smirnov's infamous FBI Form 1020, replete with salacious 
allegations about multimillion dollar bribes to President 
Biden, turned out to be a tissue of lies planted by a person 
with close and extensive ties to Russian intelligence. GOP 
Members of Congress have thus used Russian-generated 
disinformation to call democratic Ukraine an enemy of the 
United States, to deny the people of Ukraine desperately needed 
military help, and to try and impeach the President of the 
United States, who has committed no offence, much less an 
impeachable one.
    Even with a decade of reports from national security and 
intelligence agencies establishing Russia's active measure 
campaigns in our politics, many of our colleagues try to drown 
out such warnings by chanting ``Russia hoax'' or ``Russia, 
Russia, Russia,'' essentially asking us to believe Vladimir 
Putin over our own government agencies. I am happy to say it 
will not work anymore. The Republican Chairman of the House 
Intelligence Committee and the Republican Chairman of the House 
Foreign Affairs Committee are themselves forcefully sounding 
the alarm about the saturation of American politics and 
Congress by Russian propaganda.
    Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Michael McCaul, warned 
earlier this month that ``Russian propaganda has made its way 
into the United States, unfortunately, and it has infected a 
good chunk of my party's base.'' Chairman McCaul has called out 
members of the GOP for spreading Russian propaganda. 
Intelligence Committee Chairman, Mike Turner, reiterated 
McCaul's warning and added that specific disinformation ploys 
have penetrated Congress as a result of Russian propaganda. He 
said, ``There are Members of Congress today who still 
incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine 
is over NATO, which, of course, it is not.'' Our rejection of 
foreign propaganda interference in our politics, Mr. Chairman, 
should not depend on whether our party is the victim or the 
beneficiary of the effort. We all lose when American political 
dialogue falls prey to the disinformation of foreign states who 
are not members of our political community. Foreign governments 
have no right to define our campaigns, control our elections, 
or thwart our legislative process.
    The Ukrainian people are fighting a momentous battle 
against tyranny and corruption to defend democracy. We need to 
be on their side, and that means we need to disenthrall 
ourselves from the disinformation and propaganda tactics being 
waged against us by all the autocratic powers, meaning Russia 
and China as well as Iran and North Korea. It is time we work 
together on this project, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses, especially Professor Snyder, a 
leading historian of Europe and leading analyst of how 
authoritarian governments work and how they try to undermine 
freedom and democracy. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. I yield 
back.
    Chairman Comer. The Ranking Member yields back on his 
opening statement about the threat from China, I think.
    I am pleased to introduce our witnesses here today. Colonel 
Grant Newsham is a retired U.S. Marine colonel. He is currently 
a research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies 
focusing on Asia and Pacific defense, political, and economic 
matters. He is also a senior fellow for the Center for Security 
Policy. He was the first U.S. Marine liaison officer to the 
Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, and previously served as the 
reserve head of intelligence for Marine Forces, Pacific. He 
also has a substantial experience in Foreign Service. Colonel 
Newsham will be testifying in his personal capacity at today's 
hearing.
    Peter Mattis is the President of the Jamestown Foundation. 
Most recently, he was a senior fellow with the U.S. House 
Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. 
and the CCP, on loan from the Special Competitive Studies 
Project where he was the Director of Intelligence. Prior to 
that position, he was appointed by the Senate to serve as the 
Staff Director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on 
China for the 116th Congress. He began his career as a 
counterintelligence analyst at the CIA.
    General Robert Spalding is CEO of Sempre AI and a senior 
fellow at the Hudson Institute, where his work focuses on U.S.-
China relations, economic and national security, and the Asia-
Pacific military balance. He is a retired brigadier general in 
the U.S. Air Force and has more than 26 years of experience in 
strategy and diplomacy at the Departments of Defense and state. 
He has previously served as the Senior Director for Strategy on 
the National Security Council under the prior Administration. 
He also served as the former China strategist for the Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and as a senior 
defense official and defense attache in Beijing.
    Professor Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor 
of History at Yale University with an interest in modern 
Eastern Europe. He is a permanent fellow at the Institute for 
Human Services in Vienna, Austria. He is an Emerson Prize 
awardee and Humanities and Literature awardee from the American 
Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a Marshall Scholar and holds 
a doctor of philosophy in modern history.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please 
stand and raise their right hand.
    Do you all solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that 
you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    [A chorus of ayes.]
    Chairman Comer. Let the record show that the witnesses 
answered in the affirmative. Thank you, and you all may take a 
seat. We appreciate you all being here today and look forward 
to your testimony on this very important subject.
    Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written 
statement, and it will appear in full in the hearing record. 
Please limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. As a reminder, 
please press the button on the microphone in front of you so 
that it is on, and the Members can hear you. When you begin to 
speak, the light in front of you will turn green. After 4 
minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the red light comes 
on, your 5 minutes have expired, and we would ask that you 
please wrap up.
    I now recognize Colonel Newsham for his opening statement.

                  STATEMENT OF RET. COL. GRANT NEWSHAM

                           U.S. MARINE CORPS

    Colonel Newsham. Chair Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, and 
distinguished Members, thank you for inviting me to testify.
    For most of our history, our geography gave us a buffer of 
distance that meant we could choose our foreign wars. The last 
serious attack on the U.S. mainland was the War of 1812. The 
non-continental U.S. is vulnerable as Pearl Harbor showed, but 
we have long thought no invader could get at our mainland, 
owing to our detached and distant situation as George 
Washington put it. The CCP is determined to take away that 
advantage and it has through various political warfare fronts. 
It is embedding behind our lines. We have never faced such a 
serious domestic attack. It is just one we refuse to recognize.
    We are deeply penetrated, dying by the tens of thousands, 
and there is barely a response. For example, chemical warfare. 
Fentanyl killed over 70,000 Americans in 2021 alone. That is 
more than died in the Vietnam War. For Americans aged 18 to 45, 
drug overdoses are the main cause of preventable death. It is 
destroying families and communities and cities like Baltimore 
and Philadelphia. Not only can the CCP surveillance state find 
the producers if it wants, as a House report released yesterday 
showed, ``China is subsidizing the production of fentanyl 
precursors and the U.S. is letting it happen.''
    The CCP is hitting us in many other ways. Chinese economic 
warfare is destroying our manufacturing and commercial sectors. 
We have lost millions of jobs, hundreds of billions a year in 
revenue, and entire sectors, including sectors critical for our 
defense: steel, semiconductor, batteries, and shipbuilding. 
Whole regions have been devastated. Meanwhile, we became 
dependent on the PRC for everything from pharmaceuticals to 
components in F-35s. It is the largest wealth transfer in human 
history.
    The most obvious eraser of the protection of distance is 
PRC cyber-attacks. The same Americans who are furious about the 
Chinese spy balloon floating over their heads have Chinese spy 
apps loaded on their phones sitting in their pockets. China's 
hacking of OPM, Office of Personnel and Management, alone gave 
them files of 22 million Americans holding security clearances.
    For the first time in our history, our distance does not 
protect us. That is not the worst of it. The ultimate barrier 
for the PRC to breach is the one protecting your mind from PRC 
influence. Psychological warfare is the most important 
political warfare technique. It comes down to shaping how we 
think and, thus, act. Many of us think we are too smart, too 
well-educated to be influenced, but have you ever said, for 
example, China is just behaving this way because of a century 
of humiliation? You have been influenced by CCP PsyOps. India 
has suffered several centuries of similar humiliation, but it 
is a consensual democracy and does not bully its neighbors. CCP 
actions are not our fault. They are its choice. Parroting CCP 
talking points downplay or excuse threats posed by the PRC and 
justify inaction. We have never faced anything like this, and 
we are under constant attack from within.
    My recommendations relate to political warfare but are not 
a substitute for a powerful lethal military. They are mutually 
reinforcing. Urgently rebuilding our military and the defense 
industrial base is ultimately a political move, showing we 
recognize the threat we face and will do something about it. My 
recommendations: the U.S. Government needs to relearn political 
warfare, and someone needs to be responsible for the political 
warfare effort and its success or failure. Currently nobody is, 
and we should fight back; repeal China's permanent normal trade 
relations status; delist Chinese companies on U.S. exchanges if 
they do not immediately meet listing standards; institute a 
strict outbound review of investment into the PRC and tighten 
export controls on technology; make it more costly to act as a 
proxy for the CCP, including imposing real reporting 
requirements for individuals and entities operating on behalf 
of PRC interests and enforcing them.
    The same with academia and PRC-linked money and research: 
make PRC human rights an issue constantly; protect all people 
of Chinese descent in the U.S. from intimidation by Chinese 
communist agents; bring back USIA and USIS and also the Foreign 
Broadcast Information Service to understand what the Communist 
Chinese say about us to each other; speak directly to the 
Chinese people; include exposing corruption of Chinese 
Communist Party elites, their overseas bank accounts, real 
estate holdings, businesses, and their relatives with green 
cards and support state and local governments taking efforts to 
protect themselves from PRC political warfare; and educate the 
public on the realities of communism and threats we are facing 
and tell how the average citizen can contribute to this effort.
    So, what is at stake if we do not do this and more? America 
as an independent Nation. In the past, our enemies could not 
get into the heartland, thanks to our detached and distant 
situation. Now they are here. Thank you very much, sir.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Mattis for 
his opening statement.

                       STATEMENT OF PETER MATTIS

                               PRESIDENT

                          JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION

    Mr. Mattis. Thank you, Chairman Comer and Ranking Member 
Raskin, as well as all of the other distinguished Members who 
are here, because I think the opportunity to discuss this 
challenge is one that rarely comes about in this kind of forum 
and to see that this is a effort, hopefully. I am very happy to 
see this, especially after my last few times on the Hill.
    The People's Republic of China, led by the Chinese 
Communist Party, challenges much of what the USA took for 
granted about the world. And I think it is telling that both 
the current Administration and the last one had a coherent 
statement about the challenge that the PRC was going to 
change--had the intent and the capacity to change the 
international order--and to challenge the U.S. position in it. 
The CCP has consistently stated its goals that it is trying to 
achieve a kind of comprehensive modernity, that it is trying to 
unify those areas that it claims as its own, such as Hong Kong, 
Macau, Taiwan. And as we have seen in those areas, as well as 
East Turkestan and Tibet and Inner Mongolia, that it is not 
enough to have political control, but there is an economic, 
social, and cultural element to this unification as well.
    The challenge comes from the CCP's political warfare 
against the United States, as we used to define it. This is 
using all of the elements of national power short of kinetic 
force to achieve political outcomes, and what the CCP calls 
united front work is a key part of this effort. And as you 
said, Mr. Chairman, united front work is a way of monitoring, 
mobilizing, and otherwise controlling groups and individuals 
outside the party. As Mao put it, ``How do we mobilize our 
friends to isolate and strike at our enemies?''
    It is also a large policy system that is much bigger than 
the united front work department. It includes members from the 
Politburo Standing Committee all the way down to local levels. 
It includes what we have called an advisory body in the Chinese 
People's Political Consultative Conferences--that is, central, 
provincial, and local levels--by their own count includes 
roughly 700,000 people, and this is a kind of, if you will, 
united front militia outside the party that can be drawn in to 
work on the party's behalf.
    The China model, as we understand it, relies on access to 
foreign research and technology and talent. Mr. 
Krishnamoorthi's committee has done an incredible job of 
explaining just how that technology and talent is there. It 
requires access to foreign capital, it requires access to 
legitimacy through business as usual, and through being a 
normal member of international organizations. United front and 
related efforts are affecting all of those things. The 
community groups that are put together are used to spot 
scientists and researchers who can be brought back to the PRC 
and participate in military modernization efforts.
    There are efforts to control the means of perception and 
foreign banks and investment firms. And when you take a 
reasonable position to say, well, wait a minute, if the PRC is 
such a large economy, is such a significant player in the 
world, and that it should be represented and there should be 
some accommodation for its values, then we should remember 
that, No. 1, the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights are not about Western values or democratic values. 
They are about universal values, and the PRC is a party to 
them. And second, as the congressional-Executive Commission on 
China uncovered several years ago, the World Bank was funding 
vocational reeducation programs in Xinjiang at the height of 
the crackdown. And if the World Bank is funding what are 
essentially concentration camps, and something that our 
government has considered to be genocide, what is left to 
accommodate in terms of values?
    So, I think there are a few principles that we need to 
remember on this in the response, in addition to the ones that 
you named of drawing clear distinctions in our own minds and in 
our actions about who the adversary is, and that it is not 
simply Chinese people, but it is the party itself and the 
party's actions. Second is that we cannot run faster, as 
someone liked to say, unless we protect ourselves. It does not 
matter how well you run, how much you train. If someone is 
trying to crack your kneecap and you cannot run, then you are 
never going to be in the race. And that is what this political 
warfare is doing to us at an economic level and to some of the 
companies and technologies that we would like to see in the 
United States, and that were in the United States and have been 
driven out by economic espionage and overcapacity being shipped 
to our shores.
    Finally, enforcement will not be country agnostic. You 
know, in a common law system, our laws should be principles, 
but at the same time, it requires expertise and focus, and we 
have limited resources. And that means that all of our efforts 
to protect ourselves are going to be focused on particular 
countries, and we cannot focus across the border at all 
countries all the time. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes General Spalding 
for his opening statement.

              STATEMENT OF RET. BRIG. GEN. ROBERT SPALDING

                             U.S. AIR FORCE

                            FOUNDER AND CEO

                                 SEMPRE

    Dr. Spalding. Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, thank 
you for allowing me to testify today.
    Prior to founding my current company and prior to being the 
senior defense official in Beijing, as a Major, I got to study 
in China at Tongji University as an Olmstead scholar. After 
being a distinguished graduate at Defense Language Institute, I 
studied economics in Mandarin, and I really got to know the 
people, the culture, the geography of China. It was a very 
positive experience. And when I came home in 2004, I told my 
wife I want to live and work in China when I retire, and that 
was my experience leaving Beijing or Shanghai in 2004. Some 14 
years later, I returned with the knowledge of my prior 
understanding of China was flawed because earlier I had not 
fully understood the nature of the Chinese Communist Party.
    Today, we are in a new cold war. Our adversaries wield 
weapons far beyond the traditional military arsenal, instead 
harnessing the power of communication to distort and manipulate 
the very fabric of our society. The relaxation of our security 
posture concerning active measures conducted by adversaries 
like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran has left American 
institutions, those of its allies, and the entire international 
order vulnerable to relentless and ongoing political influence 
campaigns. These campaigns have fundamentally altered the 
essence of what was once recognized as the liberal democratic 
order.
    I joined the military to support and defend the 
Constitution by learning how to apply force to attain a 
political outcome. In short, I was trained to break things. 
Clausewitz captured this reality when he wrote, ``War is 
politics by other means.'' During the Kosovo War, President 
Clinton exemplified this concept as he used air power to stop 
Milosevic's genocide of the Kosovors. We used B-2s to take out 
key strategic targets of the Serbian elite, thus convincing 
them to surrender Milosevic to authorities. Milosevic 
eventually stood trial in The Hague.
    Later, while working for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
under the Obama Administration, I began to understand a new 
concept in warfare, not from a military strategist, but from a 
businessman involved in investing in China. Influence is far 
easier, less risky, and profoundly more effective than military 
weapons when conducted in our globally connected world. 
Chairman Mao Zedong, whose legacy is carried by Chairman Xi 
Jinping and the current communist party elites, describe it as 
warfare without bloodshed. I call it simply influence. During 
my subsequent years of service, I devoted as much attention to 
studying influence as I had to traditional military tactics. 
This is far more familiar to the members of the People's 
Liberation Army, the armed political wing of the Chinese 
Communist Party.
    Today, the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies wage a 
global political war to influence the face of human 
civilization using the tools of statecraft, business, 
economics, trade, finance, academia, and especially technology. 
Chinese companies working on behalf of the Chinese Communist 
Party influence American businesses and financial institutions 
with seductive promises. In turn, these American organizations 
influence our political process to ensure we maintain an 
economic connection to the party's influence, simultaneously 
eliminating manufacturing jobs for America's working class. Our 
universities and educational system are influenced economically 
with grants and Chinese student tuition. Our best and brightest 
scientists are influenced to move technology to China.
    State, local, and Federal politicians are influenced by 
Chinese investment and the often unfulfilled promise of jobs in 
their districts. Apps, like Temu, harvest user data, while 
other technology platforms, like TikTok, influence our thoughts 
and behaviors by sowing distrust in our political system, 
encouraging partisanship, and indoctrinating our younger 
generation with a CCP-oriented worldview. This is not by 
accident but through a measured sociopolitical model developed 
after a thorough study of how the Soviet Union succumbed to 
Western liberalism during the first cold war.
    The Chinese Communist Party recognized to undermine our 
republic, they must first establish a facade of friendship and 
cooperation, positioning themselves as partners on issues such 
as climate change and peace, while clandestinely manipulating 
the mechanisms established in the aftermath of World War II to 
expand their influence and control. Their goal is to impose a 
system that, though seemingly free on the surface, mirrors the 
oppressive principles of the Soviet Union. To free ourselves 
and the world from this tyranny, we must completely separate 
the institutions of the free world from the Chinese Communist 
Party influence, or we continue the slow disintegration of our 
republic.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes 
Professor Snyder.

                 STATEMENT OF DR. TIMOTHY DAVID SNYDER

                     RICHARD C. LEVIN PROFESSOR OF

                       HISTORY AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS

                            YALE UNIVERSITY

    Dr. Snyder. Thank you very much, Mr. Comer. I appreciate 
your recognition of me as a historian. I do not have the nimble 
ability that Members and staffers do to leap from topic to 
topic. I am pleased I will not be asked to speak about 
appliances today. Our subject is disinformation. It is useful 
as a historian to be in a gathering like this one because one 
hears the insights of colleagues and recognizes that these are 
themes which we have known about for decades. I wrote a book 
about Soviet counterintelligence and active measures about the 
institutions which the Chinese Communist Party modeled. I wrote 
another book about Russian counterintelligence and active 
measures in the 2010's, which serves as a model for China 
today.
    I want to take the term ``political warfare'' seriously and 
look at it all the way down, the way the Chinese themselves do. 
If we take political warfare seriously, we recognize that it 
only works if we take into account the overall context and take 
into account, as Mr. Comer himself said, our own role in it. 
Political warfare only works insofar as it works through us. 
The event in the world context about which we have to be aware, 
speaking as we are in April 2024, is the war in Ukraine. One 
cannot possibly understand Chinese political warfare without 
understanding the intense political significance that this war 
has for China right now.
    In this war is at stake international order as such, which 
China wishes to change. In this war is at stake the reputation 
of democracy, which China wishes to bring down. In this war is 
at stake alliance structures, both in Europe and in Asia, which 
China seeks to damage, and in this war at stake is also the 
Ukrainian deterrence of Taiwan. These are all key Chinese 
interests, therefore, to separate a discussion of Chinese 
political warfare from the actual kinetic war, which is taking 
place in Ukraine.
    The most significant war of the century and the most 
significant war since 1945 must be a category error. No actual 
Chinese participant in political warfare would make that 
mistake, and I urge you not to make that mistake. Chinese 
propaganda about this war rides Russian propaganda, both in its 
methods and in its themes and its particular tropes. If we 
follow Chinese propaganda about the ongoing Ukraine war, we 
notice a certain pattern, which is that the political warfare 
themes, which as colleagues have quite rightly said are meant 
to pass through us, have, in fact, done so.
    If we take the example of Chinese state media and Group 912 
of the Ministry of Public Security, we notice the following 
themes. First, Ukrainians are Nazis, a Russian theme picked up 
by China echoed on the House Floor. Second, it is all about 
NATO enlargement, a Russian theme picked up by China. Third, 
Ukraine is corrupt, a Russian theme picked up by China, echoed 
on the House Floor, echoed in the Senate by Senator Vance. 
Fourth, that democracies cannot do anything about Ukraine, that 
it is all pointless, a Russian theme echoed by Chinese 
propaganda picked up in House discussions. Fifth, we should pay 
attention to the border and not do anything about Ukraine, a 
Russian theme picked up by China, echoed in both chambers. 
Sixth, the Biden bribe, a Russian theme picked up and echoed by 
China, discussed in this very chamber.
    These are all Chinese attempts to do exactly what 
colleagues in a defined political warfare is doing, to divide 
Americans, to make Americans weak, but also to draw Americans 
away from what is essentially taking place. Were one to be 
serious about Chinese political warfare, one would have to take 
into account the overall historical moment--the war in Ukraine, 
how important that war is for China, the opportunities that war 
poses for China. Chinese political warfare includes praising 
Members of this House who delay voting on Ukraine. Chinese 
political warfare includes the overall attempt to alter the 
system. For China, the war in Ukraine is a beautiful 
conjuncture to try to do just that.
    So, Members, I would urge that we consider ourselves when 
we consider Chinese political warfare because as Mr. Comer has 
quite rightly argued, political warfare only works when it 
works in an overall structure, and that only works when it gets 
us to do things which are not in our own interests. Thank you 
very much.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes, for the 
questioning segment of our hearing, Mrs. McClain from Michigan 
for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to get back 
to the base of the hearing. I just want to make sure I am in 
the right hearing, which is defending America from the Chinese 
Communist Party's political warfare, correct? OK. Great. 
Thanks. OK. I want to focus on China, specifically as it 
pertains to EVs and the economic threat, OK? Electric vehicles, 
EVs, I believe, make us more dependent on China, and let me 
repeat, EVs make us dependent on China.
    The United States, unless I am missing something, does not 
have the capability to produce enough EV batteries, the power 
source, for Biden's EV mandates. We have to get batteries from 
somewhere, and where do we get them from? China, OK, or another 
option is we could let the Chinese battery companies be built 
in states like ours, which does not really help us national 
security-wise. If someone wants to buy an EV, hey, that is 
great. That is their option. They can have that choice, but you 
cannot force EVs on consumers when the demand does not exist. 
Our electric grid cannot handle it. Our country can't produce 
our own batteries.
    Currently, some states, like California--all we have to do 
is look at the facts, I know that is a struggle sometimes--but 
they have rolling brownouts, right? If they have rolling 
brownouts, how are they going to sustain EVs? No one can answer 
that question. It is abundantly clear to most Americans that if 
U.S. energy and automotive sectors rely on China for goods, the 
United States will have no leverage in negotiations with China. 
China will dictate to us. I do not want to be in that position. 
Let me remind everyone, China is not our friend.
    Colonel Newsham, can you tell this Committee how the Biden 
Administration has allowed ourselves to become solely dependent 
on China when it comes to renewable energies, especially as it 
pertains to the batteries?
    Colonel Newsham. Yes, ma'am. The Chinese have actually been 
doing their best to sort of take new technologies and dominate 
them, get the supply chains, for a long time. This has been 
sort of going on from previous administrations as well. But 
what they are saying, of course, with EVs and particularly an 
Administration which may be moving too fast to try and push 
green energy, green technologies, and even force EVs, that it 
creates a certain dependency, which works to China's benefit, 
because as you stated, they control good chunks of the supply 
chain, sort of the precursor minerals and materials that you 
need to make them.
    Mrs. McClain. In a nutshell, being dependent on China. Does 
that help us?
    Colonel Newsham. Oh, it is going to kill us. The Chinese 
love it.
    Mrs. McClain. All right. You and I agree. The International 
Energy Agency has stated that China produces approximately--get 
this--75 percent of the world's supply of lithium-ion 
batteries, and what do we need lithium-ion batteries for? 
Electric vehicles. Just recently, the Biden Administration 
finalized a rule that will further force the U.S. automotive 
industry toward electric vehicles. I love this concept that the 
government knows better than the American people what to drive, 
what kind of stove.
    I mean, I actually believe in the American people, but the 
Biden Administration, they want to force us and mandate us. I 
do not agree with that. I believe in people, and I believe 
people can make the right decisions. Are you concerned that 
these policies will make Americans and American industry, which 
is the backbone of capitalism, even more reliant on China?
    Colonel Newsham. Yes.
    Mrs. McClain. Wonderful. Wonderful. You and I agree again. 
What is concerning to me is the draconian mandate coming from 
this Biden Administration is just plain dumb. I mean, I still 
cannot get my arms around the government knows best. Let me 
share with the American people, the government has innovated 
nothing. If you want truly progress, it has to come from 
innovation and that innovation comes from industry. China is 
doing everything in its power to overtake the United States on 
the world stage, and we are giving them a manufacturing gift 
that would be devastating to us. America is a Nation where 
consumers' choice must remain free, and I cannot understand why 
our government is placating to China. Wait, maybe I can think 
of about 8 million reasons why, and with that, I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Norton from 
Washington, DC.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have heard reports 
of threats and attacks against Shen Yun performing arts in the 
United States by China on the basis of their practice of Falun 
Gong. Theaters received emails threatening mass shootings and 
bombings if they refuse to cancel Shen Yun performances. Shen 
Yun has reported multiple instances where the tires of their 
tour buses have been slashed. Mr. Mattis, what could the United 
States be doing to protect this group?
    Mr. Mattis. I think we actively have to be investigating 
those as crimes.
    Ms. Norton. Speak up, please.
    Mr. Mattis. We have to actively be investigating those as 
crimes, and they have to be a priority for investigative 
resources, and not simply for local police departments, but 
also for Federal law enforcement. And second, when we see those 
actions, they are, frankly, criminal acts by a foreign 
government against our people on our soil. This is something 
that has to be prioritized with a response in the bilateral 
relationship with the PRC rather than a shoulder shrug or 
something that we can quietly say that we talked about later.
    Ms. Norton. Professor Snyder, we have talked about the 
various ways autocratic regimes try to harm the adversaries 
from stealing intellectual property, to hacking the 
government's systems, and sowing chaos through disinformation. 
I would like to focus on another way in which foreign 
adversaries can target their adversaries by making money talk. 
Dr. Snyder, do authoritarian regimes sometimes use money to buy 
influence?
    Dr. Snyder. I want to thank the Member for bringing our 
attention to what is, of course, one of the absolute fundaments 
of intelligence, practice, and recruitment. Colleagues have 
quite correctly drawn attention to the ways in which new 
technology allows one government to reach another government or 
one government to reach another set of citizens. That is all 
very true, but a very classic vulnerability was, is, and will 
always remain financial vulnerabilities.
    And so, the need or the real or perceived need of, for 
example, a politician, the fact that a politician has made it 
known that the politician needs money is a classic 
vulnerability which intelligence operatives from any major 
state would pursue. So, the fact that, let us say, a president 
would make money while being president from Chinese businesses 
would be a signal, a classic signal of vulnerability, yes.
    Ms. Norton. The Constitution framers were certainly 
concerned about foreign powers using bribes and payments to 
undermine the American democratic experiment. That is why they 
included in the Constitution the Foreign Emoluments Clause, 
which prohibits all Federal officeholders, including the 
President, from accepting any payment of ``any kind whatsoever 
from any king, prince or foreign state'' without seeking 
approval. Professor Snyder, could you explain why prohibiting 
the President from taking gifts from foreign leaders is an 
important safeguard for our democracy?
    Dr. Snyder. I thank the Member for that reminder. Once 
again, it shows us how history can be useful. In late 18th 
century, the American founders were also aware of not only the 
possibility of financial, but also psychological manipulation 
of our leaders. It speaks to a very fundamental issue. There 
are complex ways of manipulating leaders in another country. We 
have talked about some of those. One of the three forms of 
Chinese political warfare is psychological warfare. The very 
simplest form of psychological warfare is to put someone in 
your debt, and the simplest form of putting someone in your 
debt is by giving them money. So, thank you for that 
clarification.
    Ms. Norton. Earlier this year, the Committee's Democratic 
staff released a report detailing how some of the most 
authoritarian governments in the world paid nearly $8 million 
to President Trump through his businesses while he was 
Commander-in-Chief, a clear violation of the Foreign Emoluments 
Clause. These countries sought and, in many cases, received 
favorable treatment from the Trump Administration. More than 
$5.5 million dollars came from the People's Republic of China 
and state-owned entities, including millions from the major 
Chinese bank.
    During this time, despite evidence that the ICBC, that 
Chinese bank, and other Chinese banks were working with North 
Korean front companies and pleas from House Republicans to 
sanction these banks, Donald Trump and his Administration 
refused to take any option. The figures we have on Donald 
Trump's receipt of money----
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady's time is expired, but if 
you want to answer where she is coming from about Trump. Who 
were you addressing the question to? The professor?
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Snyder, yes.
    Chairman Comer. OK. So, she went a minute and 15 over, but 
OK.
    Dr. Snyder. I would be very surprised if any colleagues 
would disagree with the proposition that it is extremely 
dangerous for a head of state--we do not need to mention a 
name--to be in that kind of financial relationship with foreign 
entities. Colleagues' writings have emphasized the point that 
China uses its corporations as an instrument of manipulation. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Palmer from 
Alabama for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Newsham, what are 
the Thousand Talents Program and other similar programs 
rebranded under different names?
    Colonel Newsham. Sir, I will address the Thousand Talents 
key program. Basically, the Chinese Communist Party looks 
overseas for people who have technology, information that it 
wants, particularly technology that it can use to buildup its 
own economy, its military, and it gets them on the payroll. And 
they do it everywhere, and there is obviously a well-known case 
of a Harvard professor who got signed up for it and made a lot 
of money. He got caught, got punished, but he was just the tip 
of the iceberg.
    Mr. Palmer. So, despite the name, which would indicate 
that, you know, they are trying to promote the development of 
intellectual capabilities among people, that type thing, what 
it really is, is a spy buying program.
    Colonel Newsham. That is really all it is. They are buying 
technology, as I said, that is going to be used to dominate us 
or kill Americans if a fight comes.
    Mr. Palmer. Right. And how are these programs linked to the 
Chinese Communist Party?
    Colonel Newsham. Well, they are run directly by the Chinese 
Communist Party. This is not an independent operation going. It 
is Chinese government.
    Mr. Palmer. Can you repeat the goal of these type programs? 
You commented on the goal of these programs. Can you repeat 
that with emphasis because the American people and my 
colleagues need to understand what is at stake here.
    Colonel Newsham. It very much is to buildup the Chinese 
economy, and there is no distinction between the Chinese 
economy and its military. And the objective is to dominate us 
economically and militarily, and, if necessary, to beat us on 
the battlefield if the time should come, if it is even 
necessary.
    Mr. Palmer. So, what can Federal agencies do to protect 
American data technology, intellectual property from the 
Chinese Communist Party from stealing it?
    Colonel Newsham. You are going to have to first admit you 
have got a problem. We spent decades thinking that this was all 
innocuous. It was harmless. Chinese were just like us. One 
thing you can do is to stop letting Chinese researchers into 
American laboratories. We have huge problems at Los Alamos, for 
example. It seems like every university laboratory which comes 
up with some new discovery, there are always Chinese 
researchers in there. You do not want to do anything that is 
going to help the country that is trying to kill you, and that 
is one thing you do. Do not let these people in. And there are 
obviously the basic infrastructure, sort of protections you 
need, but we have just opened the doors and, unfortunately, let 
in people who wish us ill. And I just would say, read the 
Chinese press for a week if you want to get some idea of what 
they think of us.
    Mr. Palmer. It is not just technology for our power grid or 
our military. I mean, we are very dependent on China supply 
chain for key components that our military has to have. And I 
keep trying to warn people about this, and we have got 
colleagues in Congress who refused to allow mining, refused to 
allow the development of processing and refinery facilities to 
mine and refine what we need from critical minerals and rare 
earth elements, which make us dependent on China for those 
things. We brag about funding manufacturing plants to make 
semiconductors and microchips and we do not make anything. We 
assemble them from parts we get from China, so, and it is not 
just that. Could you comment on us allowing China to buy 
farmland and the agricultural research that is taking place?
    Colonel Newsham. Yes, sir. An important point of that is, 
actually, it goes beyond just growing crops and shipping them 
off to China, but rather seed technology to key advantage for 
U.S. companies for the United States, and it can also be used 
as offensive platforms as well. Do not be surprised at some 
point in the future if our farmers have put seeds in the ground 
and they are sterile. There is more to it, as I said, than just 
the Chinese wanting to guarantee their food imports.
    Mr. Palmer. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a comment 
about where we are heading with this hearing, and with all due 
respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, this 
is not about Donald Trump. This is very serious. If you want to 
make it about that, we can make it about that, but for crying 
out loud for one time, let us put the national security 
interest of this country ahead of our political interest. And I 
understand that you can make a point, but so can we. We have 
got all kinds of evidence, but I think this is one time that we 
should stick to national security because this is serious, 
serious business. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. Very good. The Chair now recognizes Mr. 
Krishnamoorthi from Illinois.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Ranking 
Member of this Select Committee on the Strategic Competition 
with the CCP, I would like to start off by saying that in 
addressing the threat of the CCP, we have no quarrel with the 
Chinese people or people of Chinese origin or Asian origin for 
that matter. That is why we should never engage in any anti-
Chinese or anti-Asian stereotyping or prejudice. And I think, 
Mr. Comer, you started off with that sentiment at the start of 
this hearing, so I want to just say thank you, and I hope 
everybody remembers that today as we discuss the CCP 
competition.
    General Spalding, while we do not agree on everything, I 
know we agree on this. One, the CCP is a very real threat, and 
two, the CCP wants to see Republicans and Democrats divided. 
You wrote on X last year in this tweet that, ``There are three 
major parties in American politics. There is the Democratic 
Party, the Republican Party, and the Chinese Communist Party. 
In particular, the CCP seeks to keep the other two fighting.'' 
So General Spalding, you would agree that the CCP seeks to keep 
Democrats and Republicans fighting with each other because as 
long as we fight, the CCP can continue to sow doubt about U.S. 
leadership, right?
    Dr. Spalding. Thank you, Congressman. Absolutely.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And in doing so, they also can 
discredit democracy in favor of dictatorships, right?
    Dr. Spalding. That is part of the campaign.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And divide us with regard to our 
approach to countering CCP military aggression, correct?
    Dr. Spalding. It is more about getting us to not counter 
their political aggression, although military aggression will 
come into play at some point.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I agree that partisanship is really 
unproductive when we are up against this very serious threat of 
the CCP, and I hope that we can at least unite in recognizing 
the challenges facing us although we might disagree about how 
to approach them. Next, I want to talk about another topic, 
namely biotech and the CCP's influence over one of our critical 
supply chains, namely pharmaceuticals. Mr. Mattis, I know you 
are familiar with the PRC biotech company called WuXi AppTec, 
correct?
    Mr. Mattis. That is correct.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. They are one of the biggest biotech 
companies in the world, and many American companies actually 
contract with them to produce their pharmaceuticals. Now, Xi 
Jinping himself has repeatedly highlighted biotech's importance 
to the CCPs national goals, and you agree that the WuXi AppTec 
Company is critical to CCP achieving those biotech national 
goals, right?
    Mr. Mattis. That is correct.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Here is the thing. Published reports 
say that WuXi is transferring U.S. intellectual property to 
Beijing without consent, so in order to get ahead, WuXi AppTec 
is stealing American intellectual property, correct?
    Mr. Mattis. I believe that is correct, although we have not 
proven it in a court of law yet.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Well, I have introduced the BIOSECURE 
Act on a bipartisan basis, which prevents Federal taxpayer 
dollars from flowing to biotech companies of concern, including 
WuXi AppTec. WuXi has been lobbying against that bill furiously 
on Capitol Hill claiming that they have no relationship with 
the CCP and somehow they are a private company, but, Mr. 
Mattis, these are falsehoods, right?
    Mr. Mattis. That is correct, because even if a company is 
ostensibly private inside the PRC, if it is hosting a party 
committee, if it is intimately connected with national 
strategies, like the military-civil fusion development 
strategy, you are talking about a company that has sort of 
geared its progress and its orientation toward the party's 
interests and will be responsive to the party's demands.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Mr. Comer, I know you care about this 
issue, and I hope we can collectively pass the bipartisan 
BIOSECURE bill sooner rather than later to address this very 
real threat with regard to biotech. I will turn to my final 
topic, and this is related to Taiwan.
    Recently, I went to Taiwan on a bipartisan CODEL to discuss 
the importance of deterring CCP aggression. Interestingly, the 
No. 1 topic that came up in every single meeting in Taiwan was 
Ukraine. Every single person that we met with in Taiwan asked 
us, are you going to pass aid to Ukraine. Why? Because they see 
it as vital in sending a message to Beijing to deter military 
aggression by Beijing against Taiwan. So, Colonel Newsham, you 
would agree that the CCP is closely watching our support for 
Ukraine to inform its own approach to Taiwan, right?
    Colonel Newsham. Yes, they are watching it closely. They 
are also watching it regardless of what we do. It is the 
outcome of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. They are watching it 
very closely, and they are learning their lessons.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. You cannot be strong on Taiwan and weak 
on Ukraine, and so I hope that this week, more than any other 
week, we remember that, and we pass aid to Ukraine now. Thank 
you so much, and I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Grothman from 
Wisconsin.
    Mr. Grothman. Just to respond a little different view of 
Ukraine. I voted for Ukraine 6 times, but right now we have a 
situation in which the refusal to close the border forces 
members of the Republican Party to try to leverage something 
that should be automatic anyway. But in any event. And this is 
for General Spalding. In an effort to attain narrative 
dominance and advance CPP's destructive ambitions, the CCP 
carefully crafts a global narrative surrounding itself and PRC. 
They do so via different economic and political incentives, 
taking advantage of America's free speech and free market, but 
what is the Chinese narrative regarding PRC and CCP?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, the narrative is that they cloak 
everything behind the PRC. In actuality, within China, there 
are two constitutions. There is the Chinese Communist Party and 
then there is a PRC constitution. The Chinese Communist Party 
constitution says that the Chinese Communist Party actually is 
a sovereign, and I think that is the challenge of our executive 
branch, is identifying who the sovereign is and identifying the 
type of system that they represent.
    Mr. Grothman. And what is their goal?
    Dr. Spalding. Their goal is to maintain power in China and 
to restore the dominance of China as a nation in the world.
    Mr. Grothman. Can you give me examples of what they have 
done to shape the global narrative between PRC and CCP?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, the most effective thing they have done 
is to develop this very powerful technology that fuels the 
influence campaigns that come out of TikTok. So, they have 
actually adopted Silicon Valley's tactics, techniques, and 
procedures of influence for commercial gain and move that into 
social and political gain. So, they are actually able to use 
that platform to influence 180 million Americans toward a 
Chinese-centric worldview.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. I know they are American private 
businesses owned by some of the wealthiest people in the 
country. I think of the NBA. I think of Hollywood. Can you give 
us examples of how they weigh in with these money hungry 
billionaires to maybe forward the Chinese communist agenda?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, a good example is just the issue of 
TikTok. TikTok has American investors, American investors that 
have an interest in that maintaining a connection to the 
Chinese Communist Party because that is what TikTok wants. And, 
therefore, they lobby the Congress to make sure that there is 
no bill passed with regard to defunding of TikTok.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Somebody was telling me the other day 
there is a big movie out of China right now, in the last couple 
of years, the narrative being that America started the Korean 
War. Could you maybe elaborate on that or any one of the four 
of you?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, it is not just now that it has been 
going on. There is actually a great museum in Dandong, China 
that you can go to that talks about the aggressiveness of 
America and how, you know, China was helping the great Korean 
people, so it has been going on for a long time.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. How does the CCP use social media to 
change how young people think? Can you give us a specific 
example of something that young people are breathing in that is 
not true?
    Dr. Spalding. TikTok is a great example. About 30 percent 
of young people now get their news from TikTok. And there has 
been evidence shown of Chinese Communist Party messages 
embedded in TikTok, different venues, different times, 
different people, to, essentially, influence different groups 
toward a China-centric worldview.
    Mr. Grothman. Can you just give us an example?
    Dr. Spalding. Yes. So, I think one of them is that, you 
know, China is not a hegemonic country, so why does the United 
States seek to cast China as a hegemonic country. This is one 
example of a message that they would put in.
    Mr. Grothman. And what is the narrative as they tried to 
tear down America? Can you give me an example there?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, essentially, that democracy is chaotic, 
that Washington D.C. cannot get anything done, and that if you 
want the kind of, you know, government and system that exists 
in China, then you should have a single party system.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Do they cause American young people to 
have a negative view of America? Could you give us examples of 
it?
    Dr. Spalding. Perfect example is when Secretary Blinken met 
with his counterparts in Alaska, and they classified America as 
a systemically racist country.
    Mr. Grothman. Racist?
    Dr. Spalding. That is what the representative from China 
said.
    Mr. Grothman. I could not believe that. You have got a 
country where--I mean, the whole world is trying to get in 
there and people are saying we are racist? OK. Thanks.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Khanna from 
California.
    Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Professor Snyder, thank 
you for your scholarship. Thank you for your very strong 
opening statement showing the links between China and Russia 
that many Members of Congress are already praising. My friend, 
Richard Levin, would be proud of you having his professorship. 
But I want to ask you, just like you linked China and Russia, 
also about the Middle East, and the reality is that, as we 
consider the security supplemental, these issues all have 
become interlinked. Fifty-six Members of Congress, including 
Speaker Pelosi and myself, wrote a letter to President Biden 
and Secretary Blinken asking them to stop any offensive weapons 
transfer to Israel. Do you agree with Speaker Pelosi, myself, 
and 56 Members, especially given what you have written about 
Netanyahu, that this is not the time to provide offensive 
weapons?
    Dr. Snyder. I think that it is a mistake to believe that 
there is a military solution in Gaza and that everything that 
can be gained in Gaza by military means was gained long ago, 
and that the Administration should be using every possible 
leverage to secure a political solution, including and not 
limited to the recommendation that you make.
    Mr. Khanna. I appreciate that. A lot of my Democratic 
colleagues listen to you religiously, so I am hoping they will 
listen to you about this. One of the things some of us who have 
signed that letter have said is have a clean vote on Ukraine. I 
support it. Most people support it. I think you would get a 
total Democratic caucus supporting it. And when it comes to the 
Israel aid, many of us would support the defensive aid, some 
may not, but many would support Iron Dome and others. We just 
do not want the offensive weapons linked in that package. Do 
you agree that it makes sense to have separate votes on 
Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel?
    Dr. Snyder. I am going to refer to Mr. Comer's, you know, 
definition of the limits of my expertise. These are political 
matters on which you will have better judgment than I.
    Mr. Khanna. But you have good judgment. I mean, what would 
you recommend if there is----
    Dr. Snyder. I believe that it was politically 
understandable but strategically erroneous from the beginning 
to link the Israel-Gaza conflict with the Russia-Ukraine war. 
There are two very different kinds of conflicts, and almost any 
attempt to bring the two of them together creates more friction 
and misunderstanding than anything else. While I believe that 
Israel had to be supported after October 7, after the 
horrifying terrorist attacks in Israel, it was a mistake 
politically, I believe, to link that to an event of an entirely 
different category, which is the largest land war in the world 
taking place, the largest land war in Europe since 1945, an 
encounter of two states, one of which has a second largest 
military in the world. These are two very different kinds of 
conflicts.
    The Israeli-Gaza conflict will hopefully be brought to a 
political solution this summer. The Russia-Ukraine war, on the 
other hand, is an interstate conflict, which will be won or 
lost on the battlefield, and which requires an entirely 
different kind and a more serious kind of American engagement 
over the long run. So, if you ask me as an American citizen and 
as an expert on the region, this is what I think. There are two 
very different kinds of conflict, and thus far, I believe 
politically linking the two has made it harder rather than 
easier to pass support for Ukraine. And that has had terrifying 
costs, not just on the Ukrainian battlefield where people are 
dying unnecessarily, and not just for Ukrainian civilians who 
are losing territory and as a result being killed or tortured, 
but also for our overall position in the world.
    Mr. Khanna. I really appreciate you saying that because 
there many of us, the minority in the Democratic caucus, but 
who have been making your point that let us not have a linkage 
of these two so that we can vote clearly for the Ukraine aid. 
Some of us are fine also providing defensive weapons, but do 
not want to just give a carte blanche to Netanyahu, which I 
think you have articulated here. I am hopeful our leadership 
will listen to you. I am hopeful Speaker Johnson will listen to 
you. And I think as much as those who praised your opening 
statement praise that, they should listen to your advice on 
this issue. I will give you the last word.
    Dr. Snyder. Well, then if I could have the last word. The 
point that I made earlier about the linkage between China's 
political warfare and Ukraine is very real. All of the Chinese 
messaging on this issue is on one side of this issue, all of 
it. And so, if we are serious about resisting Chinese political 
warfare, passing aid for Ukraine this week would be a sign of 
that seriousness. Thank you.
    Mr. Goldman. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
    Chairman Comer. The time has expired. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Cloud from Texas.
    Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, witnesses, for 
being here. I do want to thank the Chairman for hosting this 
Committee. There cannot be a more important topic facing our 
country right now.
    Sun Tzu once said, he said, ``If one party is at war with 
another and the other party does not realize it is at war, the 
party who knows it is at war almost always has the advantage 
and usually wins.'' And right now, we find ourselves at a place 
in our country where we have not acknowledged that China is in 
an unrestricted warfare against our country. And we know from 
unrestricted warfare that they say they use things like 
psychological warfare; smuggling; media; drug; network 
technological warfare; fabrication warfare; resource warfare; 
economic aid warfare, in which we just continue to spend our 
money on things; cultural warfare; international law warfare; 
infrastructure, terrorism, chemical warfare; biological 
warfare. A number of these things we have seen already at work, 
or the beginning of them, taking a foothold within our borders, 
and the whole idea of unrestricted warfare, of course, is to 
take out our country without firing a shot.
    I found it very concerning, of course, last week when I was 
in a Committee hearing with Secretary Mayorkas, our Homeland 
Security Secretary, that it was a term that he seemed puzzled 
by when I brought up unrestricted warfare and the need for us 
to do things like secure our borders to protect against it. 
When I go through this list, you know, smuggling, drug fare, 
chemical warfare, economic aid warfare, all affecting or are 
involved in what is going on on our Southern border, not to 
mention all the potential terrorists that have come into our 
country. We know a number of single adult Chinese males are 
coming in, and you do not usually leave China without their 
permission. And so, we have tens of thousands that have come 
in, and so we have got to really be careful about what is going 
on.
    But I was struck, Colonel Newsham, about something you 
said, because you mentioned the largest wealth transfer in 
history. And it reminded me of a 2008 U.S. National 
Intelligence Council report where it predicted this: ``The 
unprecedented shift in relative wealth and economic power 
roughly from the West to East is now underway and will 
continue.'' That report went on to say, ``The United States' 
relative strength, even in the military realm, will decline and 
U.S. leverage will become more constrained.'' It went on to 
explain why. It said, ``in terms of size, speed and directional 
flow, the transfer of global wealth and economic power is now 
underway roughly from West to East without precedent in modern 
history.''
    So, this has, like, never happened before, and, instead, it 
derives itself from two sources. One, we are sending oil and 
gas revenues overseas and we are sending manufacturing 
overseas. And so, I am very concerned about the policies, and 
especially this Administration has embraced that continue to do 
these things. Now, this has been happening over decades, but 
certainly we have seen kind of the pedal been put on the gas or 
the foot been put on the gas pedal when it comes to this. Could 
you speak to what is happening in this transfer of wealth and 
political influence, and dynamic going from east to west?
    Colonel Newsham. Yes, sir. As you noted correctly, it has 
been going on for a long time. I used to work for Motorola, in 
fact, and I watched them commit suicide in China. And that was 
in the 1990s into the 2000s, so it is going a long time, but it 
is still going on. And there seems to be some sign that some 
industries and businessmen are waking up to the danger of 
putting your money into a system like that, plus the fact that 
they are out to kill us, putting it simply.
    NSA really has not stopped--energy as one particular area 
where it is baffling that we are giving up that advantage, and 
the Chinese are taking advantage of it. Other enemies are as 
well, but also, we mentioned earlier, was the so-called green 
technologies. Well, China stole the technologies for those. 
They started manufacturing them in China, and, with illegal 
subsidies, et cetera, can now dump them onto the world markets 
like the U.S. And now, even better, they have U.S. solar 
companies lobbying Congress not to crack down on Chinese 
illegal trade activities and stolen technology because they are 
getting cheap stuff from China. It is a win-win from China's 
perspective, but it has not stopped. There are some signs we 
are waking up, but, unfortunately, we are not near where we 
need to be.
    Mr. Cloud. Now, one of the things you will hear China talk 
about, they are very out there, along with Russia and Iran and 
other countries, about working to create a multipolar world, in 
other words, to bring the United States down from our 
superpower influence. In 2018, I think it is July 22, Biden 
said in a speech as Vice President, he said we are trying to 
create a multipolar world. And so, it concerns me that we have 
somebody in the White House right now who does not share the 
objective that most of us have of a strong U.S. presence that 
remains a city on a hill for the world, and then we have 
somebody in the White House who has these objectives at play.
    I wanted to see if you could speak to one other thing. 
Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, ``To destroy people, you must 
first sever their roots.'' And so, we see an ideology in many 
of our institutions, specifically our learning institutions, to 
kind of rewrite American history to get people to not 
appreciate our founders and sometimes, just frankly, ignore our 
U.S. history. For the imperfect country we are--every country 
is--we have been a tremendous positive influence in the world. 
Could you speak to what you have seen happening in our 
universities?
    Colonel Newsham. Well, it is not an acceptable thought to 
consider America a good, decent Nation, and that is 
unfortunately, how it is turned out, and you can imagine what 
the damage is there. The idea that we have seen in things like 
the 1619 Project that America is fundamentally evil, well, you 
can see how that plays out. I would note that America has an 
illegal immigration problem, China does not, and that tells you 
a lot.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Ocasio-Cortez 
from New York for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Chairman. I 
appreciate it, and thank you to all of our witnesses for 
sharing your expertise today. Dr. Snyder, your opening was, I 
think, very illuminating as to the connections here between 
different geopolitical theaters and how we can make sure that 
we continue to defend democracy, both domestically in the 
United States, but also globally.
    I wanted to touch a little bit briefly on and pick up a 
little bit very briefly on your exchange with Representative 
Khanna here in what you assessed as a mistake in tying Ukraine 
to the conflict in Gaza and also, presently, as you mentioned, 
the necessity of passing aid to Ukraine as quickly as possible. 
Could you speak a little bit, expand a little bit more on where 
you see that entanglement or detriment in tying the conflict in 
Ukraine with what is happening in Gaza, and with the 
Netanyahu's Government's decisions to advance in Gaza, and how 
the U.S. relates to both of those things differently?
    Dr. Snyder. Happy to do my best. With respect to the 
general premise, I just want to emphasize the general premise 
of your question. These things are all connected. If you are a 
Chinese political warrior and you are concerned with public 
opinion, law, and psychology, you are not going to respect the 
safe spaces of the country that you are trying to weaken. So, 
we might say, I do not want to talk about Ukraine and Chinese 
political warfare at the same time, but there are no Chinese 
political warriors who are doing that.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Correct.
    Dr. Snyder. We might say, we do not want to talk about 
Trump, because that is too sensitive, but you can precisely not 
expect Chinese political warriors to respect your safe spaces. 
It is precisely your safe spaces, your tender spots that they 
are going to go after, and this is not just a speculation by 
me. It is the actual record of what actual Chinese propaganda 
does. It goes after the safe spaces that you want yourself not 
to talk about.
    On the issue of Gaza and Ukraine, I will be as specific as 
I can. As I read it, in late 2023, in a different political 
context than the one we are in now and in a different stage of 
the war in Gaza than the one we are in now, the Biden 
Administration made a political calculation that bringing 
Israel and Ukraine together would be the most likely way to get 
people from both sides of the aisle to vote for a substantial 
bill. I believe that was a reason at the time. I was not party 
to those considerations. However, months later, with two other 
things having happened, the first being that the war in Israel 
has gone through several stages in the meantime, and are having 
gotten past any place where the Israeli military response is 
going to lead to a political solution, and second, the extreme 
difficulty in getting Ukraine aid to pass in any form, those 
two things changed the overall political situation.
    For me, who is not in the legislature and not in the 
executive branch, what I see is the qualitative difference 
between the two events, that Russia invading Ukraine 
objectively aids the Chinese position in profound ways which 
their political warriors try to exploit, but it also threatens 
world order in ways that are essential to the United States and 
to its European partners, whereas the conflict in Gaza is a 
horrifying terrorist operation, which must lead to some kind of 
political solution that will not be solved militarily. That is 
my assessment.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. 
Snyder. And I think what you laid out as so clearly there and 
in your opening as well, is that the core and the key that we 
have here is, geopolitically and stability, is in supporting 
Ukraine in this moment. Having U.S. military assistance, and 
broader global assistance to Ukraine should be one of our top 
geopolitical priorities because it is the key in defending 
democracy geopolitically, whether your interest is in China, 
whether the interest is in anywhere else. All of the focus here 
is in Ukraine and in supporting and ensuring that Putin and an 
authoritarian regime in Russia does not prevail in changing the 
geopolitical order, rule of law, and functioning democracy 
worldwide.
    And, frankly, I think it is important, from my vantage 
point on the second point, is that anything that impedes the 
swiftness and the urgency of our ability to get that support to 
Ukraine is overall contributing to the volatility of our 
situation. Would you say that that is a fair assessment?
    Dr. Snyder. All of the hostile and Russia and Chinese 
observers and political warriors want this to drag out as long 
as possible and praise those who make it drag out, so of course 
my answer would be in the affirmative. The front in Ukraine is 
threatened in ways it does not have to be. The population is 
threatened in ways it does not have to be. This is a relatively 
easy war for us to influence in the correct way. It matters to 
us for all the reasons that you have given, and we ought to do 
so as quickly as possible.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Snyder.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Higgins from 
Louisiana.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My Democrat 
colleagues and some of my Republican colleagues were focused on 
using this area to promote sending billions more American 
treasure to Ukraine. And I have been to Ukraine, I support 
Ukrainian people's right to defend themselves, but I work for 
the American citizenry, as do 434 colleagues up here and a 
hundred senators, allegedly. Meanwhile, our own border is 
dissolved, gentlemen. And China, who we are talking about today 
as the purpose of this hearing, to discuss Chinese threat, the 
CCP is deeply embedded in partnership with the cartels that are 
trafficking drugs and human beings into our country, to the 
horrific impact of the American communities from sea to shining 
sea. So, I am going to discuss that for a minute, and I am 
going to ask Colonel Newsham to comment on this relationship 
between the Chinese partnership with the cartels in the 
development and production of chemicals are produced fentanyl.
    Fentanyl, we are talking about a couple of hundred thousand 
Americans dead in the last 3 years from fentanyl poisoning. It 
is called a point on the streets. It is a little point on the 
end of an ink pen. That is why they call it a point, by the 
way. It is a dosage. It is so powerful. It is deadly in the way 
that Americans are ingesting that are ingesting this drug that 
they do not anticipate that they are ingesting fentanyl. They 
are being poisoned by that and dying, and this coming from 
China to our Southern border, partnered with the cartels, under 
this Administration's wide open border. And today-- today--
right now, across the campus in the Senate, they are in a 
process of rejecting a legitimate accountability, an 
impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas, and you are going to make 
noise about sending money to Ukraine? How about let us take 
care of America? How about let us hold this Administration 
accountable for the disintegration of our Southern border.
    Colonel Newsham, would you consider the production of 
chemicals that produce fentanyl by the CCP to be a form of 
warfare?
    Colonel Newsham. Oh, it is definitely an act of war, sir. 
They know exactly what is going on. They are allowing it to 
happen.
    Mr. Higgins. We have casualties in that war, do we not, 
sir? A couple of hundred thousand Americans dead because of 
that war.
    Colonel Newsham. It is actually a lot more than that, on 
account of----
    Mr. Higgins. I am a Republican, sir. I am being 
conservative.
    Colonel Newsham. You are about three times conservative.
    Mr. Higgins. Roger that. The CCP continues to take 
advantage of the policies of this Administration. And Secretary 
Mayorkas, we are attempting to hold accountable, and who is 
stopping us from holding that man accountable? He has been 
impeached by the People's House. Why will he potentially and 
probably not be removed from office? Who is stopping that? 
Democrats. What are they making noise about today? Sending 
money to Ukraine instead of dealing with the Chinese threat 
where you have 200,000 Americans dead. Pay attention, America. 
This is your House, and this is a very real threat that we face 
right now, deal with political crap instead of forcing 
accountability.
    The CCP has partnered with the cartels, Colonel Newsham. 
That is my perspective. Am I correct there?
    Colonel Newsham. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Higgins. Continued production of fentanyl, and its 
import into the cartel pipelines as it heads to the Southern 
border of our country, does it not send a clear message to the 
Chinese? The policies of this country, this executive branch, 
they are allowing millions and millions, 12 million illegals 
now in 3 years, untold thousands and thousands, hundreds of 
thousands of pounds likely of fentanyl into our country, does 
it not embolden the Chinese to continue that policy?
    Colonel Newsham. Yes, sir, it does. And I would note from a 
military perspective, if you are guarding your front and you 
are not paying attention to the rear and your enemy is pouring 
in, you are going to lose.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you to all the panelists for being here 
today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman for convening this hearing. I 
yield.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Ms. Brown from Ohio.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a member of the 
Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the Chinese 
Communist Party, I know all too well the threats we face from 
the CCP disinformation, election interference, and efforts to 
destabilize democracy around the world. We also know that the 
CCP is not acting alone. President Xi is united with our most 
significant adversaries: North Korea, Iran, and, yes, Vladimir 
Putin's Russia. These nations are attacking not only us, but 
threatening our democratic allies as well, like Israel, 
Ukraine, and Taiwan. The propaganda campaign waged by the CCP 
against Taiwan and other CCP targets, like Tibet and the 
Uyghurs, directly mirrors what Iran is spreading about Israel 
and Russia about Ukraine.
    In fact, we have Republican members of this body repeating 
Russian disinformation, or, as I like to call it, lies, as it 
relates to Ukrainian President Zelensky. But do not take my 
word for it. Republican leaders of the Intelligence Committee 
and the Foreign Affairs Committee, both said it themselves.
    Although we know the 2020 election was the safest and most 
secure election in the history of this country, the completely 
false narrative is that it was stolen or somehow rigged against 
a certain candidate continues to this day. I remain concerned 
about foreign disinformation interference in our upcoming 
electoral process. Russia and China are seeking to capitalize 
on the Big Lie, creating even more chaos, confusion, and 
distrust before November. That is why I have already sent a 
letter to the Department of Homeland Security, the Department 
of Justice, and the Election Assistance Commission to report on 
foreign efforts to misuse our adversaries' latest tool, 
artificial intelligence in our election, and I am working on 
legislation to prevent AI misuse as a way to intimidate voters.
    So, Dr. Snyder, can you explain how Russia and the CCP are 
capitalizing on each other's propagandist efforts to spread 
disinformation in this year's election and what Congress can do 
to combat these efforts?
    Dr. Snyder. First of all, I want to thank you, 
Representative, for using the word ``lie,'' which is very 
important. If we thought about the mandate of these hearings in 
a positive way, we would be thinking about what one would do, 
starting from the United States, to ensure that Americans are 
and can be well informed. Responding negatively, no matter how 
well, to Russia or China will never be enough. There will 
always have to be a positive response to ensure that there is 
investigative journalism and information available to 
Americans.
    As far as Russia and China in these coming elections, in a 
general way, one can say that there are Chinese institutions 
that are modeled on Russian institutions. If you follow what 
Group 912 of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security is doing, 
it looks like a kind of bad copy of what the Internet Research 
Agency in Russia was doing. It is all state rather than being 
quasi private. Its themes and its tropes are much less 
skillful, but the basic idea is the same, to convince Americans 
that elections are basically pointless and then also, in this 
case, to undermine the Biden Administration and to promote the 
Trump candidacy. That is what its actors are doing at the 
moment, so there is that relationship. The overall aim, of 
course, is to get us into a situation where we do not believe 
in ourselves, and we do not believe in our system. I believe 
colleagues would agree that, that negation is the basic aim in 
an electoral year or at any other time.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you. And, Dr. Snyder, how has the twice-
impeached, 4 times indicted ex-President played into Russian 
and CCP disinformation over the course of this election cycle 
so far? And, as an expert in this field, does this concern you?
    Dr. Snyder. I am very concerned. By the way and, again, 
this goes to the point about safe spaces. It is precisely the 
things that make you uncomfortable or irritated or generate 
some kind of negative reaction that you have to be alert to 
when you are discussing political warfare. If it makes you 
uncomfortable, if it gets into your safe space, that means the 
political warfare is probably working. I say that to preface 
the point that January 6 is incredibly important in Russian 
messaging. It demonstrates, from the Russian point of view how, 
unstable democracies are, and that message has also been picked 
up by China and its internet messaging in the years 2023 and 
2024.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you. It is clear we cannot abandon our 
allies in the face of a large-scale global and coordinated 
effort to influence our democratic electoral process. Every 
Member of this body is the product of democracy at work. We 
must send a strong message to our adversaries we are united and 
ensuring every step of the democratic process from registering 
to vote to casting your ballot on Election Day is protected. 
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Mace from 
South Carolina.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, on this hearing about 
Communist China and the threats to our Nation. As you know, Mr. 
Chairman, I think almost all Republicans in the House of 
Representatives are actually banned from Russia. I have heard a 
lot of Russian disinformation, misinformation today, and I 
would argue that democracy is not throwing your No. 1 political 
opponent off the ballot in a state so that you can, you know, 
threaten democracy.
    So, the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest threat to 
the free world known to man. They are methodical, they are 
intentional, and they are dangerous. Unlike our country's more 
brazen enemies, the CCP plays the long game and acts covertly 
in an attempt to seemingly keep their hands clean. America sees 
right through it, and most of us--key word, ``most of us''--
know better. Whether it be through deadly Chinese fentanyl 
smuggled across our Southern borders; cyber warfare; or 
stealing of American data, intellectual property, trade 
secrets, et cetera, the Biden Administration has failed to 
protect Americans not only at our wide-open Southern border, 
but also our interest from the communist threat, all while 
funding Jihad terrorism around the world. That is what this 
Administration does.
    So last month, a former employee at one of the largest 
American technology companies, who was a Chinese spy, was 
indicted and charged with 4 counts of theft of trade secrets in 
connection with a plan to steal proprietary information related 
to artificial intelligence from the company. The theft of 
advanced technologies plays into CCP cyber warfare and 
threatens America's national security. My first question today 
goes to General Spalding. To advance its destructive ambitions, 
the CCP wants to become a cyber superpower. Do they aim to do 
this by having CCP-backed operatives in America stealing 
emerging technologies from American companies?
    Dr. Spalding. They do, and they also seek to gather as much 
data as they can about the United States in order to become, in 
their term, an AI superpower.
    Ms. Mace. Volt Typhoon has been recognized by the 
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA, as a 
CCP hacker group that could disrupt critical communications and 
infrastructure, especially during times and in future crises. 
The Volt Typhoon CCP hackers were able to plant themselves 
inside U.S. Government systems, granting the CCP the ability to 
disrupt and distract cyber activity, including critical 
infrastructure at any given point in time. Does the CCP have 
the ability to hack into our government systems using its 
hacking operations, like Volt Typhoon and others?
    Dr. Spalding. Absolutely, and there are even more.
    Ms. Mace. Even more. How does the CCP manage to hack into 
these systems? How do they do it?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, we spend a lot of money on kind of the 
hard iron of national security. They spend a lot of money on 
infiltration, political influence, and, in particular, having, 
you know, millions of hackers that are, you know, focused on 
these types of disruptive activities.
    Ms. Mace. And they are doing it all day, every day, aren't 
they?
    Dr. Spalding. Every day.
    Ms. Mace. If the U.S. Government buys and uses equipment 
manufactured in China, could the CCP potentially access 
information on that equipment?
    Dr. Spalding. Absolutely, and that is one of the reasons 
why we pushed to get Huawei out of telecommunications networks 
around the free world.
    Ms. Mace. What is the most vulnerable equipment, like, that 
the government could purchase?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, I mean, obviously, routers, but for our 
electric grid, those large power transformers that, for the 
most part, come from China, are one of the biggest ones because 
it take years to build.
    Ms. Mace. OK. And then what are the dangers of CCP cyber 
warfare for just everyday Americans and then also critical 
infrastructure?
    Dr. Spalding. It is really about taking your data that 
comes from you being on these platforms, whether it be TikTok 
or Facebook or any of the others, and then learning how to 
influence you to not be a fan of a republic and to embrace a 
more authoritarian system. I mean, that is essentially what 
they are trying to do, and they have been very successful at 
it.
    Ms. Mace. The CCP is trying to do that, but also, I mean, 
there are American companies, there are social media companies, 
there are apps that are essentially doing the same thing. Would 
you agree with that?
    Dr. Spalding. I would agree with that, and I think that is 
part of the process. For some reason, we find ourselves in a 
global narrative system that is essentially aligned across the 
board between the free world and the authoritarian systems, 
which is something that has precipitated because of the rise of 
the internet and its influence on our lives.
    Ms. Mace. And we have seen the Biden Administration try to 
influence social media companies, including, you know, 
weaponizing the FBI in that effort. So, thank you, Mr. 
Chairman, and I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Stansbury from 
New Mexico.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, gentlemen, 
welcome, and for those of you that have served this great 
Nation, thank you for your service. I very much appreciate it. 
And I am especially grateful to have the opportunity today to 
talk about threats to our democracy, especially from China and 
our foreign adversaries, because these threats to our democracy 
and global and domestic security are very real. And America 
needs to wake up, because if we do not take action in this 
chamber, the threats to global and domestic security will have 
significant and devastating impacts for the United States. And 
the single largest threat at this very moment, right now, is 
Members across the aisle this week who are holding up a foreign 
aid package to Ukraine and Taiwan. Because let me be clear, if 
we do not support our allies in Europe and in the Pacific, we 
could be on the verge of a major war in which American service 
members would be deployed, so we have to get this foreign aid 
package.
    Now, I want to be clear about the threats of the Chinese 
Government as its currently configured. As a member of the 
Indo-Pacific Task Force, which is a bipartisan task force, I 
personally traveled to meet with our allies in the Pacific this 
summer, and I want to tell all of you that the threat is real. 
Our allies, who thousands of Americans fought for and died for 
in World War II, are afraid of the Chinese Government and the 
economic and military threat that they pose to their 
democracies. They are our allies. They are who is helping to 
uphold democracy in the Pacific. And if we do not take the 
moment and seize the moment right now to ensure that we are 
supporting our allies like Taiwan, it could be devastating for 
peace in the Pacific.
    In fact, one of my staff who traveled to Taiwan, similar to 
Representative Krishnamoorthi, just a few months ago, heard 
directly from civil society organizations in Taiwan, who said 
in the wake of the invasion by Putin in Ukraine, they had begun 
doing drills in case of a Chinese invasion in Taiwan. The 
Chinese are watching what we do right now, and our first and 
best defense is to support our allies and to root out any 
activity here in the United States that is undermining our 
ability to respond to this threat.
    So, while I appreciate that my friends across the aisle are 
trying to divert from a very real threat, the reality is that 
we have Members, including Members who are sitting here in this 
room today, that are repeating Russian and Chinese 
disinformation that has been planted in the U.S. media and 
milieu to undermine our action against our adversaries. In 
fact, the Republican Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, 
called it out just the last few weeks. He said that members of 
his own party are repeating disinformation that is undermining 
action on Ukraine and on U.S. military support to our allies. 
He said it infected his party. It was being repeated on the 
Floor of the House.
    [Chart.]
    We have seen examples of this, in fact, in both chambers. 
We have Members of both chambers who have been repeating 
Russian disinformation, as you can see here. And in this very 
Committee, we spent months holding a fake impeachment 
proceeding based on Russian disinformation that had been 
planted in the media by a Russian agent. Members in this 
Committee were repeating that information. So, if we want to 
rule out threats to American democracy to global security, we 
have to wake up.
    Now, Dr. Snyder, you are a historian. I am grateful that 
you are here. Please help us understand the significance of 
this moment. I am struck, as we are facing, as the leader of 
the Democratic Party has said, a Churchill versus Chamberlain 
like moment. If we do not act on Ukraine, we could see global 
threats to our peace and democracy.
    Dr. Snyder. No. 1 and most narrowly, it is impossible to 
disentangle Chinese and Russian propaganda when Chinese 
channels transmit Russian memes. No. 2, slightly more broadly, 
the way political warfare works is that things that start in 
China or Russia end up in our minds and then coming out of our 
mouths. That is what political warfare is precisely. And then 
No. 3, that the direct connection between Ukraine and China, 
which everyone in Taiwan understands and repeats, is that 
insofar as they resist successfully, the Ukrainians are 
deterring Chinese offensive operations in the Pacific. And they 
are deterring them in a way that we cannot deter because 
nothing Ukraine does can possibly be understood as provocative 
by Beijing. They have a power which we do not have, which is to 
make a war in the Pacific much less likely. If you let the 
Ukrainians go, we lose many, many things, but also we lose 
that.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, and, Mr. Chairman, I just want to 
say, history is watching.
    Chairman Comer. Yes, I agree. The Chair now recognizes Mr. 
Burlison from Missouri.
    Mr. Burlison. Mr. Chairman, Avril Haines, the Director of 
National Intelligence, had a statement recently, said, ``the 
CCP presents both the leading and most consequential threat to 
U.S. national security and leadership globally, and its 
intelligence-specific ambitions and capabilities make it, for 
us, our most serious and consequential intelligence rival.'' 
That being said--this is question for you, Mr. Mattis--I was 
shocked to hear about a program that the CCP uses with the 
united front to target and control Chinese Americans and the 
Chinese diaspora in the United States. What is their goal?
    Mr. Mattis. The goal in representing or having control over 
those kinds of community organizations, in part, has to do with 
using their voices, hijacking their voices, if you will, to 
represent them to their congressional Members and to their 
political leaders, right? Because you cannot possibly meet with 
every single constituent and solicit their opinion and engage 
in a conversation. You have to deal with groups of all kinds, 
right, whether they are through unions, through voluntary 
associations. And, therefore, you can have an organization of 
entirely patriotic Americans with one bad apple in the 
leadership position, who by virtue of that position can now 
misrepresent.
    Mr. Burlison. Is the voice for that group.
    Mr. Mattis. And the other thing is that when those groups 
meet with politicians and that image is often transmitted back 
into the PRC, Chinese people recognize what those groups are. 
And that is a message from the CCP to the Chinese people, that 
not only are we in control here, but there.
    Mr. Burlison. But we are truly there.
    Mr. Mattis. And you will not get rescued from that.
    Mr. Burlison. And that being said, since 2014, the CCP has 
overseen an extralegal operation for repatriation, called 
Operation Fox Hunt. They use Operation Fox Hunt to harass and 
stalk Chinese Americans and the Chinese diaspora. Could you 
describe this campaign, and would you consider it political 
warfare?
    Mr. Mattis. I am not sure if I would consider it political 
warfare, but I would consider it a violation of U.S. 
sovereignty by a foreign power, right? They are conducting 
operations on our soil that are affecting American citizens. 
They are deliberately avoiding any judicial channels for 
dealing with a law enforcement matter. And they say that it is 
under the guise of anticorruption, and, indeed, some of it may 
be a corrupt official, but as we have seen from Xi Jinping's 
campaign internally, some of the people that are targeted are 
very clearly targeted for their political reasons, and 
corruption is simply an excuse.
    Mr. Burlison. Yes. So, what are the methods or tactics that 
they are using? I have heard that they have organized policing 
groups that are located in the United States.
    Mr. Mattis. Yes, and those groups have been used to hire 
sort of private investigators to sort of pursue and look. In 
some cases where there are direct confrontations with the 
victim to be repatriated back to the PRC, they are showing, 
say, pictures of family members or calling family members in 
the PRC to demonstrate that, look, if you are not on a plane 
back, then this will be the last you see them.
    Mr. Burlison. OK. So, they are threatening the family 
members that are still in China----
    Mr. Mattis. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison [continuing]. And saying, if you do not 
repatriate back or, you know, come to heal.
    Mr. Mattis. If you are not back in the PRC in X amount of 
time then, you know, this will be the end for them.
    Mr. Burlison. Just this year, the Operation Fox Hunt's top 
official met with the Deputy Secretary Advisor, Jon Finer, and 
Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. Could you explain how this 
might represent elite capture?
    Mr. Mattis. OK. I do not think that something like that 
kind of meaning would represent elite capture. If you are 
trying to get particular messages into the system, if you are 
trying to tell the PRC what is acceptable or not, you are going 
to have to deal with those security authorities, and you are 
going to have to depress the message.
    Mr. Burlison. But you think that there is a risk for U.S. 
officials who are meeting with CCP officials that are in charge 
of these repatriation efforts? Obviously, they are seeking out 
these meetings.
    Mr. Mattis. Again, if you are trying to have any impact on 
the Ministry of Public Security or the Ministry of State 
Security, you cannot meet with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
so you will have to meet with them. That is simply the nature 
of dealing with those governments.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Professor Snyder, what 
role does political and financial corruption play in the 
authoritarian regimes, like China and Russia?
    Dr. Snyder. It always plays a very fundamental role, as we 
discussed before, in recruitment, but it also plays an 
ideological role. Since the basic argument is that democracies 
are just hypocrisy, everyone is basically corrupt, only money 
matters, corruption is used not just as a way to bring in 
individuals, but it is also used as a way to discredit the 
entire system.
    Mr. Raskin. And internally, those regimes are based on 
corruption.
    Dr. Snyder. And so, the point externally is to normalize 
that. Back in the 20th century, we had rivals that had other 
visions of the future. Now we do not. Now we have rivals, and 
this pertains both to China and Russia, whose main message is 
that our system is not what it seems to be. There are really no 
alternatives to just autocratic regimes where only money and 
power count.
    Mr. Raskin. One of our colleagues chided our side of the 
aisle for raising Donald Trump's name. I think that was 
presumably directed at Representative Norton, who discussed the 
millions of dollars that Donald Trump pocketed in unlawful 
foreign government emoluments from the Chinese Government and 
from the state-owned ICBC bank while he was President. Is 
corruption in America irrelevant to our ability to withstand 
foreign propaganda by authoritarian regimes, like China and 
Russia?
    Dr. Snyder. Of course it is not irrelevant. It is very 
relevant. The way that any kind of political warfare proceeds 
is by these sorts of connections, a message becomes more 
plausible because a person is a bit more corrupt. A person is a 
bit more corrupt, the message becomes a bit more plausible. 
Anyone who is serious about political warfare would be very 
attentive to these underlying financial issues, of course.
    Mr. Raskin. One of our colleagues mentioned an effort that 
is underway to stop U.S. Government agencies from blowing the 
whistle on Chinese and Russian propaganda on social media. 
There are some people who say that it violates the First 
Amendment if our agencies say there is Chinese propaganda on 
your website, there is Russian propaganda on your website, but 
what do you think about that? Do you think that in a free 
society, the government should be able at least to alert the 
social media or private internet service providers about the 
existence of foreign government propaganda on their vehicles?
    Dr. Snyder. Colleagues in different ways have already 
raised the point that TikTok is not the only problem. The 
problem is the way that social media is designed as such. 
Democracies tend to work better when institutions are set up in 
such a way that factuality has an advantage over propaganda. 
Unfortunately, social media is set up in a different way. It 
gives a financial advantage for advertisers to attention 
seeking and therefore, to shocking propaganda. We know that 
this can be mediated because when attempts have been made, 
either by corporations themselves in cooperation or by the 
government, we have been able to dramatically reduce hostile 
state-sponsored propaganda.
    What we face now in 2024 is a major corporation, Twitter, 
which has chosen not to police itself even as much as the other 
platforms do, and, therefore, we face a situation in which 
states are taking advantage of this sort of chaos. Hostile 
actors take advantage of this chaos to change the information 
environment. This is, par excellence, an example of 
psychological warfare, and it would be foolish if the U.S. 
Government did not allow itself to draw attention to it.
    Mr. Raskin. I wonder if you can help us figure out where we 
have come as a Committee, Professor Snyder. About a year ago, 
our GOP colleagues began heralding an FBI Form FD-1023 that 
recorded allegations that President Biden acted corruptly in 
Ukraine and tried to promote these as credible allegations. It 
turned out that these were lies, and the person who was 
promoting them has been indicted for lying to the FBI and 
constructing a false record. It turns out that he was up to his 
neck in connections to Russian foreign agents, and yet, our 
colleagues at various points called this a smoking gun, said it 
showed proof that the Bidens took bribes and so on. Chairman 
Jason Smith, for example, said this was a smoking gun and it 
was the definitive proof that the Bidens took bribes. It 
obviously has been dropped, and yet, this was the genesis of 
our investigation. How do we understand----
    Chairman Comer. That is just simply not true, but go ahead 
and finish your story.
    Mr. Raskin. I will yield to the Chairman if you want to 
take some more time.
    Chairman Comer. No, no, no, no.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, you can use your time----
    Chairman Comer. Are you saying the bank statement is a 
Russian disinformation that the Bidens took $9,000 from China?
    Mr. Raskin. I agree that you have been talking about bank 
statements for more than a year, but they do not show anything 
other than there was no crime.
    Chairman Comer. So, it is OK, as Tony Bobulinski said, for 
China to bribe Joe Biden's family with $9 million?
    Mr. Raskin. But that is the lie that has been discredited. 
I mean, where is your impeachment investigation? If Joe Biden 
took a $9 million bribe from China, why aren't you impeaching 
him for that?
    Chairman Comer. Well, who says we are not?
    Mr. Raskin. Well, I can invite Mr. Moskowitz to come back 
in. Do you want to move for impeachment today because I thought 
that that was your main agenda item. You said it was the 
paramount priority of the Committee.
    Chairman Comer. No, this is a hearing on China, and you all 
have an obsession with Russia and Trump. It is disturbing. You 
need therapy.
    Mr. Raskin. We can talk about China and Trump or Russia and 
Trump.
    Chairman Comer. You all need therapy, Mr. Raskin.
    Mr. Raskin. No, no. You need therapy. You are the one who 
is involved with the deranged politician, not me, OK? I have 
divorced myself from Donald Trump a long time ago. You are the 
one who needs to disentangle from that situation. And I will 
tell you this, if you believe that it would have been illegal 
for Joe Biden to take $5 million from Ukraine--it certainly 
would have been--what do you think about Donald Trump taking 
more than $5 million from the Chinese Government while he was 
President?
    Chairman Comer. Well, we know that Donald Trump had a 
legitimate business that he talked about, and he campaigned 
about.
    Mr. Raskin. The legitimate business was the White House. He 
sold the White House.
    Chairman Comer. Oh, give me a break. What business were the 
Bidens in? What business did Joe Biden's family own? What 
business were they in? Did they have hotels? Did they have a 
social media company? Did they have golf courses? Do they have 
casinos? Did they have office buildings?
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman?
    Chairman Comer. What business? Did they have an energy 
company?
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, we have spent tens of millions of 
dollars on you pursuing Joe Biden and you have not identified a 
single crime.
    Chairman Comer. That is not true. That is a lie. You are 
lying.
    Mr. Raskin. Oh, really?
    Chairman Comer. We have not spent $10 million.
    Mr. Raskin. How much have you spent?
    Chairman Comer. We have not spent hardly anything.
    Mr. Raskin. It has been for free? OK. All right. Well, in 
any event, you know what? Then we get what we paid for because 
you got nothing. You got nothing on Joe Biden.
    Chairman Comer. No, no, no. Answer this question. Answer 
this question. What did the Bidens do? What business were they 
in? Why did they get millions and millions of dollars?
    Mr. Goldman. Can I answer that?
    Mr. Raskin. No, I would like to ask you a question.
    Mr. Goldman. Can I answer what they did?
    Chairman Comer. No, you stop. What did the Bidens do? What 
business were they in?
    Mr. Raskin. I do not know what you are talking about. Well, 
what business are the Comers in? You are talking about lots of 
people. There are lots of people in the family.
    Chairman Comer. I am a farmer. I have land. I lease land. I 
sell honey.
    Mr. Raskin. Your impeachment investigation must identify a 
high crime and misdemeanor.
    Chairman Comer. What did the Bidens do? What did they do 
for the million dollars?
    Mr. Raskin. I will tell you what Joe Biden did. He was a 
senator of the United States. Then he wrote a book and he said 
he made the most money ever made in his life, millions of 
dollars on his book, and he gave a million dollars in 
inheritance.
    Chairman Comer. That is what his family did? That is why 
Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, China, Russia, that is why they 
paid the Biden family money because of Joe Biden's book?
    Mr. Goldman. None of those governments paid anyone any 
money.
    Mr. Raskin. Somebody needs therapy here, but it is nobody 
on our side of the aisle, OK?
    Chairman Comer. Alright, alright, enough.
    Mr. Raskin. No, I honestly----
    Chairman Comer. Back to the hearing. Back to the China 
hearing. Order. Order.
    Mr. Raskin. You had your chance. I would like my time 
restored.
    Chairman Comer. Well, no, your time was expired.
    Mr. Raskin. No, you interrupted me. I want my time 
restored.
    Chairman Comer. No, you had your time. You went above, and 
I let Ms. Norton go a minute----
    Mr. Raskin. You know what?
    Chairman Comer. Sit down. Everybody come back. This is 
about China. We asked a simple question now. Ms. Pressley, you 
are out of order. Sit down.
    Mr. Burchett. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman?
    Chairman Comer. Mr. Burchett.
    Mr. Burchett. Mr. Chairman, can I make a motion that we 
take a break for 5 minutes?
    Chairman Comer. We are going to keep going. We will let the 
record show that Mr. Raskin could not answer the question on 
what did the Bidens do to receive the money.
    Mr. Raskin. Let me start with this. My last name is Raskin, 
OK? We have sat next to each other for more than a year. You do 
not have to add the ``s''. No. 2, I would like my time 
restored, and No. 3----
    Chairman Comer. No, you had your time. You are out of order 
now.
    Mr. Raskin [continuing]. You have not identified a single 
crime, but what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden 
for and keep this nonsense going? Why? What is the crime? Tell 
America right now. You have wrecked my time.
    Chairman Comer. Well, you are about to find out very soon.
    Mr. Raskin. What is the crime?
    Chairman Comer. You are about to find out very soon.
    Mr. Raskin. Name it.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Biggs from 
Arizona.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman, and, Colonel Newsham, Yokoso. We could talk in 
Japanese for a few minutes, but that might take us further 
anyway, but glad to have you here. Welcome, everyone here. I am 
going to focus on China. Mr. Mattis, question for you first. 
Has Chinese propaganda penetrated into the United States of 
America?
    Mr. Mattis. I think you can safely say that it has, but I 
think the point of my testimony was to point out that this is 
more than just narratives, that we should be concerned with the 
actions that result.
    Mr. Biggs. Right. I am going to get into that, but I am 
talking just initially about propaganda that has penetrated as 
well, right? I mean----
    Mr. Mattis. The message has certainly reached, so yes.
    Mr. Biggs. OK. And then I will go to Colonel Newsham. My 
questions for you is, you mentioned in your written testimony 
hacking of U.S. military technology. Have we covered that 
today?
    Colonel Newsham. Not yet, sir, but a couple examples I used 
were the hacking of the, basically, the plans for the C-17 
transport, the F-35 fighter, and the Chinese have built a 
couple of things that look an awful lot like those.
    Mr. Biggs. And do we have evidence that how they were able 
to hack that technology, acquire that technology?
    Colonel Newsham. I believe there is a pretty good 
understanding of that. It was partly human access that allowed 
them to get the computer access, but also, they have computer 
hackers on a scale you can hardly imagine. They have got plenty 
of resources to devote to it.
    Mr. Biggs. And then this will be for you, Colonel Newsham, 
and, Mr. Mattis, maybe this is what you wanted to get at, too. 
In your written testimony, Colonel Newsham, you mentioned 
physical penetration or infiltration, and, in particular, you 
point to what I would call South China Sea assets that China is 
trying to acquire in relationship to actually U.S. assets there 
like the Northern Mariana Islands, et cetera. Do you want to 
take just a few seconds and expand on that?
    Colonel Newsham. Sure. Just regarding the South China Sea, 
the Chinese had de facto control of that, at least 7 or 8 years 
ago, long before Ukraine ever came along. They are now going 
after American territories and parts of America in Commonwealth 
of Northern Marianas and in Guam. Coming through the borders in 
CNMI's case, it is with the approval of our own Department of 
Homeland Security, which gives visa-free access. Once they are 
in, they are causing all sorts of trouble. They have picked up 
Chinese around wandering through the jungles around U.S. bases 
in Guam as well.
    Mr. Biggs. And that gets me to something that General 
Spalding wrote in his written testimony where you said, ``The 
relaxation of our security posture concerning active measures 
conducted by adversaries like China, Russia, North Korea, and 
Iran has left American institutions, like those of its allies 
and the entire international order, vulnerable to relentless 
and ongoing political influence campaigns.'' Do you want to 
elaborate on that in connection with what we have been talking 
about with the physical infiltration or the propaganda 
infiltration as well?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, one of the ways that that happens is 
because we relaxed COCOM. So COCOM prevented both us and our 
allies from trading with the Soviet Union, and through that 
trade, through that financial and economic relationship is 
their biggest lever for political influence within the United 
States and its allies and the international system.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, General. And I would just say before 
we go further, I did read one of your books, General Spalding, 
and actually one of Dr. Snyder's books on tyranny, so I have 
some familiarity. If the other two have written books, I have 
not read those books yet. I will try to track those down as 
well. And then, I want to get back to you, Mr. Mattis, one of 
the things you were talking about. You wanted to talk more than 
the psychological or the infiltration or penetrations of 
psychology by China, so.
    Mr. Mattis. So, for example, in technology transfer, it is 
not simply computer network exploitation of companies or labs, 
but you see united front organizations sort of building a sort 
of, I guess you could call it, a fake community organization, 
the United States for Chinese and Science and Technology. And 
those organizations or, in some cases, the organizations back 
in the PRC, have memorandums of understanding with U.S. 
professional organizations. And those associations basically 
work with the talent programs to identify potential Americans 
that should be brought over to the PRC to contribute their 
knowledge and expertise. And I think we sometimes think of this 
too narrowly as a classified issue or that we say that all 
science is published when those soft skills of managing a lab, 
the experience of failed experiments, are all valuable pieces 
of knowledge and wisdom that are beneficial to running large 
labs.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, my time is expired, but 
I do have a couple of items I would like to submit for the 
record and just say that 25 years ago when I was working in 
graduate work in Northeast Asian security, China was a huge 
issue even then for very different reasons, but they had 
hegemonic ambitions at that time. And if you go back, you will 
see that they had hegemonic ambitions literally forever in 
China.
    So, I would submit a couple of things for the record, Mr. 
Chairman. One of them is the testimony that was submitted to 
the U.S. Senate before the Emerging Threats and Spinning 
Oversight Subcommittee on the Committee on Homeland Security 
and Governmental Affairs, entitled, ``Strengthening 
International Cooperation to Stop The Flow of Fentanyl Into the 
United States,'' of March 20, 2024.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Biggs. And another piece, rather old, the title is 
offensive, but it was a book review of one of Mr. Snyder's 
books from September 9, 2014, called, ``Timothy Snyder's 
Lies,'' by Daniel Lazare.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Biggs. I yield. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time is expired. The Chair 
now recognizes Mr. Garcia from California.
    Mr. Gracia. Thank you. It has been a wild hearing so far. I 
know that the Majority is very interested in looking into 
China. I think we should definitely look into the influence 
China plays in our politics, and I just want to start by 
reminding us of this man.
    [Chart]
    And I am sure that our Chairman and my Republican 
colleagues will recognize this gentleman over here, which, of 
course, is Gal Luft. We know that a Chinese spy, Gal Luft, 
infiltrated this Committee's sham impeachment inquiry against 
President Biden with false allegations. Now, according to this 
Federal indictment, Gal paid a former U.S. Government official, 
who was a Donald Trump advisor, to ``publicly support certain 
policies favorable to China.'' He also sold Chinese arms around 
the world. Now, our Chairman who wanted this gentleman to be a 
witness called him ``a very credible witness''--this is a 
Chinese spy we are talking about--just because Gal Luft was 
willing to help Republicans smear the President.
    So, when we are talking about China's influence, it starts 
with the House Majority, our Chairman, wanting to have a 
witness, this man, who actually was a Chinese spy. So, it is 
completely ridiculous for Republicans to claim to get tough on 
China while they are working with literal Chinese agents to 
spread misinformation. It goes to show you what a joke this is. 
Now, this is not, of course, the only example of the Majority's 
hypocrisy----
    Chairman Comer. Will the gentleman yield to a question?
    Mr. Garcia. I am going to keep going, sir, because we know 
that one of the most important tools to stop hostile foreign 
influence in our government is the Constitution. Now, Professor 
Snyder, what role does the Emoluments Clause of the 
Constitution play in protecting against foreign influence?
    Dr. Snyder. Since it seems to be the rule here that people 
jump around a bit, I am just going to respond to the absent 
questioner.
    Mr. Garcia. Actually, sir, I need you to respond to just--
--
    Dr. Snyder. I will, I will, I will, trust me. But the item 
that was entered into the record regarding me, when Members 
read it, they will find that it is the ``Stalinist Objection to 
Timothy Snyder'' that they have entered into the record. That 
book review is from the point of view of someone defending the 
one-party Leninist state, which colleagues and I believe is the 
problem.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
    Dr. Snyder. Yes. The Emoluments Clause is a fundamental 
example of the wisdom of the founders in recognizing the 
possibility of financial corruption in the head of state.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, and the Emoluments Clause is really 
important. We know that foreign influence on a President is 
clearly a serious threat, and the evidence is clear. As our 
Ranking Member mentioned, we have actually evidence that China 
funneled cash to Donald Trump through his businesses while he 
was President. That is illegal, and it threatens national 
security. The Trump International Hotel; more stays at the 
hotel in Vegas; Trump Tower, over $5.5 million dollars. The 
People's Republic of China, including state-owned enterprises, 
made unconstitutional payments in excess of $5.5 to the Trump 
organization, and those millions into Donald Trump's pockets 
are just a small sample of the total payments we received. And 
as a reminder, our Chairman actually cutoff the investigation 
into Trump's business activities, so we only have documentation 
for about 2 years.
    Now, just months ago, the Republicans blocked my motion to 
subpoena Donald Trump's accountants for the records on this 
cover-up, which is an absolute crime, and in 2016, Trump said, 
``I love China.'' The biggest bank in the world is from China. 
The Department of Justice found that that same bank was being 
used as a front to funnel money into North Korea.
    I also want to talk about, it is not just about China, of 
course. We can document illegal money going into Trump's 
businesses while he was President from multiple companies, from 
multiple countries and companies. We know from China, $5.5 
million, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, from all of these 
countries, there was illegal foreign payments made violating 
the Emoluments Clause, and this is only a small sample. We also 
know that this is a barter part of the grift that the Trump 
family is doing on the American people.
    We know that Donald Trump, for example, gave his son-in-
law, Jared Kushner, a job at the White House. We know that his 
son put together a $110 billion dollar arms deal with the Saudi 
Government. We know that Jared Kushner received a $2 billion 
investment fund from the Saudi Government after just a month 
after leaving the White House. So, there is a lot of corruption 
that we can talk about, and even though Chairman Comer wants to 
invite spies that are working with China, does not want to 
investigate the payments that Trump is receiving from foreign 
governments, these are things that must be talked about and 
investigated.
    Professor Snyder, is it acceptable for a former U.S. 
official to get $2 billion from a foreign investment fund right 
after leaving office?
    Dr. Snyder. That is totally unacceptable.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, and that is exactly what the Trump 
family is doing, continues to do, and they continue to put this 
huge grift on the American people. Mr. Comer, would you like to 
ask me a question?
    Chairman Comer. Yes. Are you aware that Gal Luft was 
charged by the Department of Justice for violating the Foreign 
Agents Registration Act because of the money he took from CEFC 
which is the exact same company that paid the Bidens millions 
of dollars? The same company that Tony Bobulinski testified 
that Joe Biden was the ``big guy'' in a deal with?
    Mr. Garcia. Chairman Comer, are you aware that you called 
him a very credible witness, yet he is a Chinese spy?
    Chairman Comer. Well, then Hunter Biden and Joe, are they 
Chinese spies?
    Mr. Garcia. Sir, sir, you called Gal Luft a very credible 
witness who happened to be Chinese spy.
    Chairman Comer. He is a credible witness because he worked 
for the same company that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden got paid 
for.
    Mr. Garcia. For the record----
    Chairman Comer. And Jim Biden.
    Mr. Garcia. For the record, our Chairman is saying----
    Chairman Comer. It is the same deal.
    Mr. Gracia [continuing]. That a Chinese spy working for the 
Chinese Government----
    Chairman Comer. Well, he is----
    Mr. Garcia [continuing]. Against the United States of 
America is a very credible witness. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. He is credible because he got paid by the 
same company the Bidens got paid for, the same thing.
    Mr. Raskin. The same company that gave millions of dollars 
to Donald Trump when he was President?
    Chairman Comer. No, it is the same company that paid the 
Bidens billions of dollars. For what business was it again, Mr. 
Raskin? What business were the Bidens in? I forgot what you 
said.
    Mr. Goldman. Can you stop saying the Bidens? Who paid 
Hunter Biden?
    Mr. Raskin. Jim Biden was a businessman.
    Chairman Comer. No, no, no.
    Mr. Raskin. Joe Biden is a public servant.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Fallon from 
Texas.
    Mr. Fallon. Mr. Chairman, thank you. You know, I woke up 
this morning and I was reviewing my notes, and how naive am I 
that I thought that this hearing could actually be bipartisan 
when we are talking about threats that the Chinese Communist 
Party presents to the United States of America? Wow. Well, I do 
not care if you are a Democrat or Republican. We live in this 
country, and this country is threatened by the Chinese 
Communist Party. So, no doubt there are a great many threats. 
There is a multitude facing our country. It is our job in 
Congress to determine the greatest threats to our United States 
national security and our future prosperity. And then, to 
address them, we have to prioritize them, what are the most 
dire threats, and then let us work to either eliminate them or 
mitigate them to a significant degree. In my humble opinion, it 
is rather obvious what the greatest threats are. One, it is our 
deficit spending and our accumulated debt, and two is the 
Chinese Communist Party.
    But this is not a hearing, Mr. Chairman, on the deficit or 
the debt. It is not a hearing on Russia. It is a hearing on the 
Chinese Communist Party. I am not here to talk about Joe Biden 
today. I am here to talk about the Chinese Communist Party, and 
it is sad when you hear these buzzwords from the Ranking Member 
and other Democrats. They say ``Russia,'' ``Ukraine,'' 
``Nazis,'' MAGA,'' ``collusion,'' ``Russian hoax.'' When the 
Mueller investigation found that there was no collusion, it 
truly was a Russian hoax, reality proves quite the opposite.
    Professor Snyder, what new territory of another nation-
state did Vladimir Putin violate in 2008?
    Dr. Snyder. Georgia.
    Mr. Fallon. And who was President in 2008?
    Dr. Snyder. President of the Russian----
    Mr. Fallon. Of the United States of America.
    Dr. Snyder [continuing]. Federation was Vladimir Putin.
    Mr. Fallon. Of the United States of America.
    Dr. Snyder. Obama.
    Mr. Fallon. In 2014, what new territory of another nation-
state did Vladimir Putin violate?
    Dr. Snyder. Ukraine.
    Mr. Fallon. Ukraine, Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, correct?
    Dr. Snyder. That is correct.
    Mr. Fallon. And who was the President then?
    Dr. Snyder. Obama.
    Mr. Fallon. OK. In 2022, what new territory of another 
nation state did Vladimir Putin violate?
    Dr. Snyder. Ukraine.
    Mr. Fallon. Full-scale invasion trying to grab Kyiv, 
correct?
    Dr. Snyder. Correct.
    Mr. Fallon. And who was President then?
    Dr. Snyder. Biden.
    Mr. Fallon. Joe Biden. From January 2017 to January 2021, 
what new territory of another nation-state did Vladimir Putin 
violate?
    Dr. Snyder. There were no military invasions.
    Mr. Fallon. There were no new territories violated by 
Vladimir Putin. You are correct.
    Dr. Snyder. Yes, although----
    Mr. Fallon. And who was President then?
    Dr. Snyder. Of the Russian Federation?
    Mr. Fallon. The United States of America from January 2017 
to January 2021.
    Dr. Snyder. You are repeating the question. It was Joe 
Biden.
    Mr. Fallon. No. From 2017 to 2021, who was the President of 
United States?
    Dr. Snyder. I am sorry, Donald Trump.
    Mr. Fallon. Donald J. Trump.
    Dr. Snyder. That is right.
    Mr. Fallon. So, reality shows us that there was only one 
U.S. President in the last 3 or 4, rather, that could either 
control or contain Vladimir Putin, and that was Donald J. 
Trump. So, that could be possibly an inconvenient truth to our 
friends across the aisle, but nonetheless, it is the truth.
    General Spalding, who has a greater GDP, China or Russia?
    Dr. Spalding. China.
    Mr. Fallon. China. In fact, it is about, almost 10 times as 
much. And Colonel Newsham, who has a greater population, China 
or Russia?
    Colonel Newsham. China.
    Mr. Fallon. China by about 10 times. So, who is the greater 
threat? It is rather obvious it is China, or as President Trump 
would say, ``China.'' General Spalding, has the United States' 
intelligence community accurately identified the threat that 
the CCP presents?
    Dr. Spalding. No, and I believe that is a direct result of 
the influence within Washington, DC, particularly on think 
tanks.
    Mr. Fallon. In what ways has the intelligence community 
failed to address the CCP threat?
    Dr. Spalding. When I started, you know, working with the 
Defense Intelligence Agency, they were primarily focused on the 
military threat coming from China. They were not focused on the 
economic threat, the financial threat, the academic threat, the 
political threat that we are talking about here.
    Mr. Fallon. So, for instance, just a few years ago, before 
Joe Biden took office, there were about less than 500 Chinese 
nationals that were apprehended on the Southern border. And 
then, the last year we have data for, last fiscal year, it was 
nearing 50,000. Do you find that alarming?
    Dr. Spalding. Terrifying.
    Mr. Fallon. Do you think every one of those folks is just 
looking for a better life, or are there some sleeper agents 
looking to do us harm if we ever gotten to a hot war with 
China?
    Dr. Spalding. I think both of those situations exist, but I 
also think that the Chinese Communist Party is opportunistic, 
and it has conditioned the Chinese citizens to believe that 
they must do what the Chinese Communist Party asks. So, every 
Chinese citizen that comes into the country, by law, is a 
Chinese agent of the Chinese Communist Party.
    Mr. Fallon. And even if 99 percent of them are just looking 
for a better life, it is terrifying to know that there are 500 
new potential threats in this country in an open society.
    Dr. Spalding. Well, Li Yuan, who is a journalist for the 
New York Times, talks about the deprogramming she herself had 
to go through when she came to the United States and started 
recognizing the signs of having been programmed. And I think if 
you are going to have those types of people come into the 
country, then they have to go through some similar 
deprogramming process because if you live in China, like I 
have, you see that the entire population has been programmed 
through propaganda over the last decades, certainly since 
Tiananmen Square.
    Mr. Fallon. Chairman, thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Earlier this month, the 
Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an independent nonprofit team 
of disinformation researchers, reported its evidence of the 
Chinese Communist Party's evolution and influence operations. 
Their research showed how the CCP has begun using Russia and 
Putin's propaganda playbook. Here is a perfect example. RT, 
Russian propaganda outlet puts out a lie. That lie is picked up 
and amplified by a CCP disinformation operation posing as a 
Trump supporter, and then, Alex Jones, a star of MAGA world, 
echoed and amplified the line to his millions of followers. 
Professor Snyder, are you aware of the CCP adopting Russia's 
propaganda playbook and even working hand-in-hand with Russia 
to push out disinformation?
    Dr. Snyder. Yes, very much so, at many levels.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Understanding the threats posed by the 
CCP requires understanding the context, and where 
disinformation is concerned, that means examining Russia's 
playbook.
    Professor Snyder, in an interview with PBS Frontline 
Program in September 2022, you said, ``So what the Russians 
became very effective at doing by way of their international 
propaganda, then later by interfering in elections, is messing 
things up, taking the worst of other societies and bringing the 
worst tendencies to the fore, finding by digital means and 
otherwise our weaknesses and making those weaknesses greater 
and greater.'' Professor Snyder, have you observed Russia using 
this playbook against the United States?
    Dr. Snyder. That is the Russian playbook, and 
interestingly, I believe it is also a scholarly consensus that 
Chinese information operations are moving in that direction. 
There is a good empirical evidence since 2023 that precisely 
what China is trying to do on social media is what Russia did 
in previous elections, namely disrupt and favor the candidate 
they regard as most disruptive.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you for sharing that. There have been 
numerous official warnings not only that Russia has worked to 
interfere in U.S. elections, but that it did so specifically to 
boost Donald Trump's candidacy. The Mueller report warned that 
Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential election and did so 
to support Donald Trump's candidacy.
    On March 10, 2021, the National Intelligence Council issued 
a declassified intelligence assessment regarding Russia's 
efforts to interfere in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, 
and said, ``We assessed that Russian President Putin authorized 
and a range of Russian Government organizations conducted 
influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's 
candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President 
Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, 
and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the U.S.'' 
Professor Snyder, why has Vladimir Putin sought to boost Donald 
Trump's candidacy, and to be clear, have Vladimir Putin's 
reasons for boosting Trump's candidacy changed over the years?
    Dr. Snyder. This is why it is so important the discussion 
is framed in terms of political warfare because political 
warfare, by definition, involves someone else trying to get you 
to do something that you probably ought not to do. It is not 
personal, and no one should take it personally. It is the 
judgment of the Russian state that Donald Trump is the more 
disruptive candidate and the one most likely to make the United 
States more like Russia and more accommodating to Russia.
    Ms. Lee. Professor Snyder, do you believe Russia is seeking 
to interfere in the upcoming elections in 2024?
    Dr. Snyder. Of course.
    Ms. Lee. Finally, Professor Snyder, you recently wrote 
``Trump presents himself as an admirer of Putin and had been 
his client in one form or another for a decade. He has 
succeeded in conditioning the media by teaching his followers 
to shout, 'Russia hoax,' whenever the subject comes up, but all 
the same, Russia has backed him in every campaign, and it is 
backing him in this one.'' Professor Snyder, what are the 
consequences for our democracy if Donald Trump and his allies 
in Congress continue to shout 'Russia hoax' even as they echo 
and amplify Russian propaganda and disinformation?
    Dr. Snyder. If we have a hearing on political warfare, then 
we must be concerned with political warfare, which includes 
Chinese operations, Russian operations, and operations where 
the two come together. What is interesting about 2024 is that 
China is using memes that it gets from Russia and methods which 
are very similar to Russian.
    The thing that one has to worry about is the American part, 
right? It is not political warfare unless there is an American 
part in it. Unless our minds and our mouths move, it is not 
political warfare. And so, if our minds and our mouths are 
replicating things that come from China or from Russia, then we 
are probably doing things which are not in our interest. To 
repeat, that is the essence of political warfare, which is 
meant to be our subject today.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. While the Stop the Steal MAGA party 
claim to love America and democracy so much, they have shown 
they are willing to undermine it every step of the way, even by 
courting our adversaries to ensure their permanent role. I 
yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Timmons from 
South Carolina.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Spalding, I 
am going to be directing all my questions at you. You are very 
familiar with Huawei and their attempt to use 5G technology to 
essentially infiltrate the technology infrastructure of 
developing countries and developed countries alike. And in, 
really, 2018, 2019, as this was really becoming more of an 
issue, the FBI was very reluctantly transparent to show the 
world that Huawei is not secure. They are basically creating a 
backdoor. Their servers are compromised, and the Chinese 
Communist Party has access to all of the data, thereby 
compromising the privacy and cybersecurity of any country that 
has Huawei 5G. And I actually sponsored a bill last Congress, 
H.R. 4493, the Promoting Secure 5G Act of 2021. And what that 
bill does is it tells countries that if they want to borrow 
money from international monetary institutions, they are going 
to have to have secure 5G. It essentially cuts off funding for 
them to implement unsecure 5G.
    And so, the Chinese in response to this, in response to the 
FBI essentially outing them to the world that Huawei is 
insecure and that they are using their servers, and there is no 
data security and no data privacy, changed course. So, they 
literally had to completely change course. They had to get 
third party groups to come in and try to vouch for them and 
allege that they are actually secure.
    And so, again, as we talk about how we are going to hold 
China accountable, I think Huawei is a perfect example because 
they were engaging in the global economy in bad faith. They 
were doing things that they were not supposed to do. And the 
United States can say all we want, but we are only a small 
portion of the global economy, so when we tell our allies that 
this is a problem and why, and then our allies reverse course. 
You know, India, Israel, bunch of European countries have 
essentially banned Huawei because it is not secure. Are you 
familiar with all of this?
    Dr. Spalding. Very familiar.
    Mr. Timmons. And do you agree that by leading a coalition 
of partners to hold the Chinese accountable, it is a model that 
we are able to use to change their behavior, because, again, 
look, China has an enormous population. They have enormous 
natural resources. They are going to be a juggernaut in the 
global economy, but they cannot cheat. We have to hold them 
accountable. They cannot cheat. So, I just think that Huawei is 
a perfect example of how we can lead the global community. We 
can lead a coalition of international partners to change their 
behavior. Are you following me?
    Dr. Spalding. Absolutely, and totally agree.
    Mr. Timmons. So, I was very pleased the Promoting Secure 5G 
Act that I proposed in 2021 was included in the 2022 National 
Defense Authorization Act, then was signed into law December 27 
of 2021. So, I mean, I am doing my part to hold Huawei 
accountable in the global economy, but we need to replicate 
this exact game plan across the board.
    And, you know, we are talking about TikTok is a great 
example of, again, if they relocate their servers to ensure 
privacy and have the rule of law where the Chinese Communist 
Party is not going to be able to compromise the privacy and 
data security of millions and millions of Americans' personal 
data, I mean, that is what we are looking for. We are looking 
for equity, and we are looking for parity in the global 
economy. It is not just 5G. It is not just TikTok.
    I mean, the intellectual property and the subsidization of 
businesses that are competing in the global economy, we have to 
reform their behavior. And I really think people do not 
understand that our system of government is designed to create 
a free market where the government does not put its thumb on 
the scales. And businesses compete, and if they have good 
products and services, they succeed. But in China, it is 
literally a part of their culture that the government is 
responsible for giving pseudo private businesses an advantage. 
They give them advantages in permitting. They give them 
advantages in cheap energy costs. They give them advantages in 
reduced labor standards, whatever it is. Do you agree with all 
that?
    Dr. Spalding. I do agree with that. One point I would make 
is that it is not just good enough to cut them off from the 
global economy. We must develop our own stuff. We must invest 
in ourselves, and I think that is an important aspect of it.
    Mr. Timmons. Absolutely. We saw during COVID that our lack 
of supply chain diversification was a huge problem, and, I 
mean, we need to realize that they are not our friends. And we 
need to get the rest of the world to appreciate that we cannot 
be overly reliant on an economy or country that is acting in 
bad faith for the purpose of becoming the global hegemon that 
will then reduce the rest of the world to subservience. That is 
their objective, and we have to push back on that because it is 
not a matter of if, but when, if we do not change course. And 
with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. Very good. The Chair now recognizes Mr. 
Goldman.
    Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to take a 
minute just to answer the question you keep asking, which is, 
what is the business of the Bidens?. Not surprisingly, you 
consistently and continually refer to the ``Bidens'', ``the 
Biden family,'' and you never refer to the individual names, so 
let me just help you out with telling you what the professions 
are of the Bidens.
    [Chart]
    Hunter Biden was a corporate governance lawyer appointed by 
George Bush to the Amtrak Board and then served on a number of 
corporate boards and investment firms. Jim Biden is a 
businessman. Joe Biden is the President of the United States 
and has been a public servant and elected official for the 
better part of 50 years. Now, Hunter Biden, you may want to 
discuss what his business was, and whether he was equipped to 
be part of an investment firm to provide services based on his 
experience. But that has nothing to do with your jurisdiction 
or the impeachment investigation because you cannot link any of 
his business dealings, A) to any foreign government, which he 
was never paid by, unlike Donald Trump's and Donald Trump's 
family, or B) to the President of the United States. And that 
is why your impeachment investigation is a spectacular failure.
    Now, let us turn to the issue of this hearing. In the 
opening statement, the Chairman chided Democrats for adding 
Russia to a hearing on political warfare. It is truly 
remarkable, given the following facts. First, we know that 
Russia used political warfare to interfere in the 2016 election 
on behalf of Donald Trump. We know that from the Mueller 
report, which my colleague from Texas just referenced. The 
Mueller report never, of course, said there was no collusion. 
It just stated that there was insufficient evidence to prove a 
criminal conspiracy. But there was plenty of evidence of 
collusion, including, just a few, Donald Trump Jr. eagerly 
meeting with Russians to get ``dirt'' on Hillary Clinton; 
Donald Trump asking Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton's 
emails, which they did; and Paul Manafort, the campaign 
chairman, giving internal polling data to a Russian spy. And, 
in fact, Special Counsel Mueller stated that the Trump Campaign 
knew about the Russian interference, welcomed it, and used it 
for their benefit. But importantly, Special Counsel Mueller 
also charged two dozen Russians with interfering in the 2016 
election through a hacking scheme and social media.
    Let us also point out that Chairman Comer and Chairman 
Jordan have both stated that the best evidence of high crimes 
and misdemeanors by President Biden was a thoroughly and 
repeatedly debunked theory of bribery that was planted in this 
Committee by the Russian Government through an FBI source. 
Third, Republican Chairmen of our national security Committees 
in the House have stated that Russian disinformation has 
infiltrated the Republican Party and is parroted on the House 
Floor as more than half the Republican Party has taken the side 
of Vladimir Putin against our democratic ally in Ukraine.
    Now, Professor Snyder has done a masterful job explaining 
how the CCP's efforts to engage in political warfare is based 
on Russia's previous efforts to do so, and, in fact, China's 
primary means of doing so is to amplify Russian disinformation 
and political warfare. And here, we have two spies. One alleged 
Russian spy--one Chinese spy on the top, Gal Luft, and one 
alleged Russian spy on the bottom, Alexander Smirnov. Alexander 
Smirnov is the one who planted the false information about the 
bribery that the Chairman and--both Chairmen have said is the 
best evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden. Gal Luft is the 
Chinese spy, who the Chairman has said was a very credible 
witness.
    So, you cannot discuss the CCP efforts to engage in 
political warfare without discussing Russia's, but not 
surprisingly, the party of Putin in the Majority wants to do 
just that. Let us just make one reference to the Chinese spy--
--
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Goldman [continuing]. Since we are supposed to talk 
about----
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Goldman. Please stop my time.
    Chairman Comer. Stop the clock. The Chair recognizes Mr. 
Sessions.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, I think that that was a 
personal remark at me and my party. I think it is 
inappropriate, and I would ask that the gentleman's words be 
taken down.
    Mr. Raskin. I do not think the gentleman mentioned your 
name.
    Mr. Sessions. He said the party of--he referred to my party 
as the party of Putin, and that is a personal slanderous 
statement.
    Mr. Goldman. No, it is not. It is just a statement about--
--
    Mr. Raskin. A statement about a party is by definition not 
a statement about a person.
    Mr. Sessions. I would ask that his words be taken down.
    Chairman Comer. The Committee will suspend.
    Mr. Goldman. I do get to defend myself, Mr. Chairman, and 
what I would say is that there was no----
    Chairman Comer. We have suspended. Do you wish to take down 
what you said?
    Mr. Goldman. No, I do not.
    Chairman Comer. OK. Well, we suspended.
    Mr. Goldman. And I do not because it does not reference any 
individual Member of Congress, which is the only reason why 
words are taken down.
    Chairman Comer. OK. OK. The Chair has ruled that, 
unfortunately, since his remarks were not directed toward a 
person but rather a party, then they cannot be taken down. But 
I will remind everyone about the decorum that we have all 
agreed to abide by, as well as the purpose of this hearing. It 
is about the Chinese Communist Party's influence in America. 
And I think----
    Mr. Goldman. Mr. Chairman, if I could have my time 
restored.
    Chairman Comer. Mr. Goldman, you have 14 seconds left.
    Mr. Goldman. No, I would like my time restored to 20 
seconds.
    Chairman Comer. Your 20 seconds, yes.
    Mr. Goldman. Because I would like to talk about what you 
just said is this hearing, the point of this hearing, which is 
the CCP. So, if I could get my time back to 20 seconds, I just 
have one more point to make on that.
    Chairman Comer. Twenty seconds.
    Mr. Goldman. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. Nineteen.
    Mr. Goldman. So, let us talk about the CCP's infiltration. 
After Gal Luft was arrested, and a simple internet search would 
show that he was arrested, the Chairman said that he was a very 
credible witness on the Biden family corruption. Do you know 
what else he was charged for? He was charged for making false 
statements to law enforcement about the very information that 
the Chairman claimed to be credible----
    Chairman Comer. The time has expired.
    Mr. Goldman [continuing]. Just like Alexander Smirnov, the 
Russian agent was charged with false statements.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Burchett from 
Tennessee. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Burchett.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mattis, how do 
the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the Chinese Ministry 
of Public Service advance communist China's unrestricted 
warfare against the United States?
    Mr. Mattis. The way the party defines united front work, it 
is the work of the whole party, and, therefore, as one of my 
friends and colleagues, Alex Joske, put in a report, the party 
speaks for you. You can see a variety of party institutions, 
but then you can see united front work being conducted in 
nearly every single ministry. And in the Ministry of Public 
Security, you can see this in their contracting and for 
computer network exploitation or hacking of dissidents of 
people abroad, of their overseas police stations to track and 
to monitor Chinese who are living overseas, whether they are 
PRC citizens or not, and whether or not they are legally there 
or not.
    And the Ministry of State Security is an intelligence 
service with internal and external responsibilities, some of 
which are political influence. And they have often hidden 
inside the united front organizations as a way to provide cover 
to conceal who they are as intelligence officers.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. What are the specific capabilities the 
Chinese Ministry of Public Service and the Ministry of State 
Security, and how do these groups work with the People's 
Liberation Army to undermine the U.S.? If we could keep it kind 
of brief. I am going to run out of time.
    Mr. Mattis. All right. Well, one of the ways that they work 
together is in mature policy systems like the Taiwan affairs 
issue or Hong Kong and Macau affairs, where all of these 
organizations are, in fact, sharing cover organizations and 
working together with their other colleagues around the party 
and the government to work on those issues. And in some cases, 
you can see them working together to support, say, the Ryukyu 
independence movement in Okinawa, in the hopes that U.S. bases 
will not be there.
    Mr. Burchett. All right. And which communities and 
institutions are vulnerable Chinese intelligence operations?
    Mr. Mattis. All of them.
    Mr. Burchett. All of them? OK.
    Mr. Mattis. I have eight former colleagues.
    Mr. Burchett. That is pretty broad. All right. Dr. 
Spalding, I would like you to talk a little bit more about the 
failures of the intelligence community that my colleague 
mentioned earlier, and which agencies could be doing more.
    Dr. Spalding. I think they all could be doing more.
    Mr. Burchett. Excuse me, General Spalding. I called you--I 
apologize. My daddy was a general when he was in the Marine 
Corps in the Second World War, Peleliu and Okinawa, Chesty 
Puller. He told me the only thing a general ever gave him was a 
hard time, so I can hear him whisper in my ear to show him some 
respect. So, excuse me, General.
    Dr. Spalding. Thank you, Congressman. It is really about 
the focus of the intelligence agencies, and I think it has 
really been evident here in this hearing. The Chinese Communist 
Party seeks to divert our focus from them, and they really are 
using both of the conflicts that are ongoing, both the Russia-
Ukraine conflict and what I would call the Israel-Iranian 
conflict. And I think that is something that our intelligence 
agencies really want to be focused on. They want to be focused 
on the hard military aspect of national security, and what they 
are not focused on is the economic, the social, the political, 
the cultural part of their warfare, and that is really the main 
part. The People's Liberation Army is an armed component of the 
Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party themselves 
practice political warfare as their main avenue of attack, 
period, and that is what the intelligence agencies do not focus 
on.
    Mr. Burchett. How does the CCP shut down criticism of its 
human rights abuses or warfare against America?
    Dr. Spalding. It uses our own media. One good example is 
its attack on the Falun Gong. It has basically convinced the 
entire academic university system in the United States that 
they are a brainwashed cult. They have done the same thing to 
our media institutions. And so, that is the way they do it, is 
by controlling our own narratives within the----
    Mr. Burchett. And you are saying that they are not a 
brainwashed cult?
    Dr. Spalding. I think they are just a group of people that 
are dissidents of the Chinese communist regime.
    Mr. Burchett. Yes, I agree with you, too. They put on a 
pretty cool dance routine. It is pretty cool. Colonel Grant 
Newsham, I am going to switch gears pretty quick. Did 
dismissing the lab leak theory as a conspiracy or as a racist 
help China muddy the waters on COVID's origin?
    Colonel Newsham. It was key to it, and it worked.
    Mr. Burchett. Sorry?
    Colonel Newsham. It was key, and it worked very, very well.
    Mr. Burchett. Did the lab leak theory, as a conspiracy or 
racist, help China further divide the American people, in your 
opinion?
    Colonel Newsham. Oh, completely. It did more harm than they 
could have dreamed of doing. I think they are pinching 
themselves now.
    Mr. Burchett. I think they are, too. And I am out of time, 
but I do appreciate all of you all for your service. Colonel, I 
am sorry we did not get to talk more.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Pressley from 
Massachusetts.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our 
witnesses for being here. As policymakers, we have the 
responsibility to weigh our words carefully, especially during 
discussions like the one that we are having here today. The 
Chinese Communist Party is adept at Russian propaganda efforts 
to interfere in our elections and advance its own objectives. 
We should address that issue seriously, and we can and must do 
so without stigmatizing and discriminating against people based 
on their identities. Racial slurs are not a national security 
strategy. They do nothing to help counter the threat posed by 
the CCP.
    Mr. Mattis, in a June 2023 tweet, you wrote that equating 
the Chinese Communist Party to Chinese culture is ``racist by 
any other name.'' I agree. Distinguishing between a political 
party and an entire race of people and its culture is 
important, and we have the moral responsibility to make that 
clear, yet it is lost on some. Mr. Mattis, what is the harm in 
equating China's ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party, 
with all people of Chinese descent?
    Mr. Mattis. One, because the history of China is far bigger 
than the Chinese Communist Party. It is one of the world's 
great civilizations. You know, whether you accept the way in 
which the current, sort of, minority structure is described or 
not, it includes a lot of different people from different 
places that have come together or have been sort of defined as 
Chinese in the last 170 years.
    Another reason is that there are a lot of Chinese-Americans 
who are Chinese people who came to this United States and have 
chosen to become citizens. I remember a classmate of mine at 
University of Washington, who is 7th-generation generation 
Chinese, which is more American than I am by any measure that 
counts. And to pretend that they are somehow represented by the 
Chinese Communist Party rather than their local politicians, 
their elected congressional Members, and their state senators 
and Governors and President, I think it dismisses the choices 
that they or their family have made.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. Thank you. Anti-Asian racism is 
pervasive in this country. Republican rhetoric and policies 
have helped to normalize it. In March 2020, Donald Trump 
tweeted the racist phrase ``China virus'' in reference to 
COVID-19. In the week that followed, there was a significant 
increase in anti-Asian content on Twitter, as well as an 
increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans, according to a 
2021 study.
    I ask for unanimous consent to enter this study from the 
American Journal of Public Health into the record.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Ms. Pressley. Mr. Mattis, how can Congress address the CCP 
without contributing to xenophobia?
    Mr. Mattis. The first is to continue making such 
distinctions because even if they are semantic in terms of 
policies, they help us frame, in our own head, in our own mind, 
what it is that we should be focused on and how our efforts 
should be guided. The second is that I firmly believe that we 
have a shortage of China expertise for all of the different 
departments in the government and finding ways, either through 
the creation of an open-source center, as Colonel Newsham 
mentioned, sort of the recreation of the Foreign Broadcast 
Information Service, but he is really discussing its public 
dissemination issue to make information available.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you.
    Mr. Mattis. Because at the end of the day, our Federal 
Government and law enforcement will focus on illegal behavior, 
and that is what we want in a democracy. But what we are 
talking about is often unacceptable but still legal behavior, 
and that is something that has to be guided by a discussion in 
civil society about how we govern ourselves and how we deal 
with each other as citizens.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you very much. The AAPI community has 
seen a sharp increase in discrimination and race-based violence 
since the start of the pandemic. There were 158 anti-Asian hate 
crimes in the country in 2019. This number jumped to 746 in 
2021, nearly five times higher. Our constituents are depending 
on us to help them, not endanger them with racist rhetoric. As 
a proud member of the congressional Asian Pacific American 
Caucus, my hope is that Congress will prioritize policies that 
affirm and protect the AAPI members of our community, like the 
Southeast Asian Deportation Relief Act, and stop contributing 
to hateful acts against them. And finally, Professor Snyder, 
when political leaders normalize racist language that pits one 
group against another, does it make our country more or less 
safe?
    Dr. Snyder. As our adversaries know and seek to exploit, it 
makes us less safe.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Greene from 
Georgia.
    Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this is a very 
important hearing we are having today, and I would like to take 
a little time to respond to some misinformation that has been 
spread here.
    [Charts]
    Mr. Snyder, you said in your opening statement that the 
fact that there are neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian military is 
disinformation, a disinformation trope and a Russian 
denazification meme.
    Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record this 
2021 Time Magazine article titled, ``How a White Supremacist 
Militia uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members About 
the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.''
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Ms. Greene. Thank you. Time also put together a piece only 
3 years ago, and it is quite an extensive video that gives full 
information about the Nazis in Ukraine and their recruitment 
efforts that go all around the world. It is amazing to me that 
just in a few years' time, it is now considered misinformation 
to talk about the Nazis in Ukraine.
    I would like to quote the article. It says that ``Ali 
Soufan, a security consultant and former FBI agent who has 
studied Azov Nazis, estimates that more than 17,000 foreign 
fighters have come to Ukraine over the past 6 years from 50 
countries.'' According to Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, 
he said that Azov has been recruiting and radicalizing and 
training American citizens for years. He also finished saying 
in his testimony to the U.S. Senate that American White 
supremacists are actually traveling overseas to train. This is 
an extremely concerning situation. I do not think anyone in the 
U.S. Government, Americans, do not support actual Nazis or 
White supremacists. I know I certainly do not, and I cannot 
understand why in just a short amount of time, this information 
that our own American media frequently talked about is no 
longer talked about.
    I would like to point out also, here is an NBC article, 
stating that Ukraine's Nazi problem is real. Mr. Snyder, do you 
see this headline? This is NBC News. They say that Ukraine's 
Nazi problem is real, even ``if Putin's denazification claim is 
not.'' So, even our own American media, unless you consider NBC 
or Time Magazine, misinformation spreaders or disinformation 
media outlets, this is contrary to what you testified. And 
there are frequent pictures all over--anybody can find them--of 
Nazis. Here they are. This looks like something you would see 
out of Hitler's Germany, from Ukraine. And this is something 
that is extremely important to talk about.
    According to the Council of Europe, ``However, Ukraine is 
ranked well in the top half of countries in terms of how 
corrupt they are. In the last 5 years, Ukraine is ranked close 
to the countries like Gambia, Iran, Myanmar, and Sierra Leone 
in corruption.'' That is not very free and democratic company 
to keep. Ukraine has canceled their elections, arrested members 
of the press, not allowed different types of religion unless it 
goes along with the Ukrainian Government. And right now, the 
biggest push in Washington, DC, is to fund the Ukraine war with 
another $60 billion.
    And while we are talking about the CCP, I think it is 
extremely important to point out that our own wide-open border 
is the most dangerous threat to our national security. 
According to CBP data, there have been 24,296 Chinese nationals 
enter the United States at the Southern border just this year 
in 2024. I want you to know that is up 7,000 percent since 
Biden took office in 2021 when only 342 Chinese nationals 
crossed our border.
    When we are talking about national security and talking 
about threats through the United States, Congress needs to 
remember that our open border is the greatest threat to the 
American people who, by the way, Monday was Tax Day. April 
15th, when struggling Americans pulled together to pay their 
taxes or filed for extensions or paid money that they just did 
not have and desperately are hoping for a tax return, the 
United States Federal Government is doing everything they can, 
here in Congress, persuading Members of Congress with every 
lobbyist from foreign countries and groups, trying to tell us 
to send $100 billion overseas, and we are doing nothing for our 
border.
    So, when you want to talk about misinformation, Mr. Snyder, 
you might actually look a little closer to American media, if 
you do not like what they are saying. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
I yield back.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, does he have the opportunity to 
respond to the gentlelady?
    Chairman Comer. Sure.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
    Ms. Greene. I did not ask him a question, Mr. Raskin.
    Chairman Comer. OK. No. Her time has expired.
    Mr. Raskin. You asked multiple questions.
    Ms. Greene. I did not ask him a question.
    Mr. Raskin. You certainly did. You said didn't----
    Ms. Green. I did not ask him a question, Mr. Raskin.
    Chairman Comer. The time has expired. The gentlelady's time 
has expired. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Frost from Florida.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I get into it, 
it is interesting to hear my colleague just now talk about 
disavowing White supremacists when, in 2022, she spoke at an 
event led by White supremacist and White nationalist, Nick 
Fuentes, and when asked about it, doubled down on it and said, 
``We are going to focus on people, not labels.'' So, get out of 
here with that damn hypocrisy, and, Dr. Snyder, I am going to 
give you some time to respond. Go ahead.
    Dr. Snyder. First of all, I would like to thank the 
representative from Georgia by making clear with her comments 
and with her person that any discussion of political warfare 
has to include Russia, Ukraine, and America. She has just 
demonstrated that point, I think, very powerfully. On the 
question of Nazis, I have written two books as a historian 
about Nazis and the Holocaust. On the question of Ukrainian 
nationalism, I am the leading scholar of that subject in North 
America, and I have been writing about it for 20 years.
    If the chamber is interested in the degree of far-right 
participation in Ukrainian politics, you can be assured that no 
far-right party has ever crossed 3 percent--3 percent--in 
Ukrainian election. So of course, there are bad people in every 
country, but by any comparative standard it is a very small 
phenomenon. In Russia, on the other hand, the army includes 
openly Nazi formations, such as Rusich. The government itself 
is fascist in character, and it is carrying out a war which 
includes deportation of children by the tens of thousands, the 
open intention of destroying a state as well as mass torture. 
So, if we are looking for fascism, and if there is anyone who 
is sincerely concerned about halting fascism or racism, you 
would wish to halt Russia.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you so much, Dr. Snyder, and, you know, 
this hearing was put together to talk about political warfare. 
And it is strange because a lot of my Republican colleagues 
seem to be pointing a lot of fingers, but not at Vladimir Putin 
and not holding him accountable. I mean, even top-ranking 
Republicans are having enough of it. Michael McCaul said, ``I 
think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United 
States. Unfortunately, it has infected a good chunk of my 
party's base.'' We just heard some of that right now. 
Republican Michael Turner, Chairman of the House Intelligence 
Committee, ``We see, directly coming from Russia, attempts to 
mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia 
messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House 
Floor.'' Dr. Snyder, can you talk really quickly about some of 
the main narratives Russia uses when engaging in political 
warfare?
    Dr. Snyder. I appreciate this question because if we are 
going to talk about political warfare, we have to take into 
account the ways that countries cooperate. It is entirely 
artificial to say here is China, here is America. That means 
that we leave aside Xinjiang, we leave aside Tibet, Hong Kong, 
Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, all the places where 
China practices political warfare, and we leave aside Russia 
and Ukraine, which is where it matters the most. Political 
warfare is only political warfare if it passes through us. That 
is the intention. We have just seen an example of it passing 
through a person. It is only political warfare if it passes 
through us.
    What the Russians and the Chinese imitating the Russians 
try to do is to convince us that our system is no better than 
theirs, there is no point in voting, and we should support, if 
we support anyone at all, the person who is most likely to 
bring our system down. That is the point.
    Mr. Frost. I really appreciate you bringing up the fact 
that it has to pass through us because we just heard it here 
from my colleague, and here is another tweet from the same 
colleague saying, ``Anyone who votes to fund Ukraine is funding 
the most corrupt money scheme of any foreign war in our 
country's history.'' And if you look at where this is from, 
this is from the Strategic Culture Foundation, an online 
journal run by a Russian intelligence service that has been 
sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for election 
interference.
    So, we see it passing through us, and not just with the 
colleague that just spoke, but with many of my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle. And what Russian propaganda will 
not tell you is most of the money allocated for Ukraine is 
actually spent in America. Ninety percent of it going to 
Americans. And so, are these American companies that support 
Ukraine? Are these allegations based on evidence, Dr. Synder, 
and, if not, where do these allegations against President 
Zelensky and his cabinet come from?
    Dr. Snyder. First of all, U.S. weapons are being used 
extremely efficiently on the Ukrainian battlefield. They are 
being audited in practice. Second, there is an American 
institution which does audit the way that is expended. Third of 
all, you are quite right. What the allocation of usually 
weapons that are about to be decommissioned anyway to Ukraine 
means is that we spend more on modern weapons inside the United 
States, which is why the defense industry is generally in favor 
of it. This trope of Ukraine being corrupt with respect to the 
weapons comes from a handful of Russian sources. There is no 
reason to think it. They are fighting for their lives. They are 
doing very well.
    Mr. Frost. Yes. Thank you so much. We are going to let that 
sink in. We have Members of the U.S. Congress using Russian 
disinformation to discredit Ukraine and help Russia, and I 
yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. [Presiding]. The gentleman yields back his 
time. Thank you very much. Now, I will yield myself 5 minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, before we do, can I just have one 
unanimous consent request?
    Mr. Sessions. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Raskin. This is an article answering our friend, the 
gentlelady from Georgia, ``The Azov Battalion: How Putin Built 
a False Premise for a War Against Nazis in Ukraine,'' from CBS 
News.
    Mr. Sessions. Without objection, we will add that.
    I also was speaking with the gentleman about two articles, 
which I would wish to enter into the record, the label of which 
they would be ``Treasury Targets Large Chinese Network of 
Illegal Drug Producers,'' and second, a letter signed by over 
50 members, including senators, to the Attorney General of the 
United States, dated February the 2nd concerning Chinese 
nationals----
    Mr. Raskin. Terrific.
    Mr. Sessions [continuing]. Owning property here as it 
relates to growing marijuana.
    Without objection, those both will be entered into the 
record.
    Thank you to the panel that is here. Each of you have added 
content today that I consider very valuable and necessary for 
us to hear.
    I would like to, if I could, point to Colonel Newsham, if I 
could, please. Colonel Newsham, you are the author of a book. 
It is called ``When China Attacks: A Warning to America,'' and 
part of this is not just related to the things that have been 
discussed by my colleagues today of drugs, fentanyl, et cetera. 
But in particular, today, I would like to have you give us the 
warning, ``When China Attacks: A Warning to America,'' of the 
newest deadly drug ingredient that has, as DEA Milgram has said 
her Agency has seen this, xylazine, if I am saying that 
correctly, when mixed with fentanyl in 48 states.
    And evidently, fentanyl on this scale of times, it is a 
thousand times more potent than most of the drugs that are on 
the market, and this is a thousand times fentanyl. I am not a 
medical doctor. I believe that this is done to kill more 
Americans because the threshold of the potency that you have to 
gain knowledge of over time is a higher, higher, high. Sir, did 
I pronounce the name right, and can you discuss that? It is 
spelled X-y-l-a-z-i-n-e?
    Colonel Newsham. Sir, I think you are close enough. What I 
would point out is that the deaths from fentanyl, and this is 
just the next variation of it, this is like take----
    Mr. Sessions. A thousand times more potent, though, 
perhaps.
    Colonel Newsham. It is bad news. But I point out, sir, is 
this is taking four or five divisions of Marines or Army off 
the rolls. That is basically what you are doing. We do not have 
enough recruits in the military, and this is one reason why. 
And it is something that does track back to the Chinese 
Communist Party, and it is what they are doing. One thing I 
would like to mention, sir. The book that I wrote, it is 
largely about political warfare, and it has been going on for 
30-plus years. And I would suggest that based on what I have 
heard today that Ukraine could disappear, it could have never 
come along, and you would have the same problem with Chinese 
political warfare.
    There is a tendency to conflate the word ``political 
warfare,'' which is a blanket term covering everything from 
economic to financial, to chemical, to fishing fleets, to 
equate it all to propaganda, and that is not the case. And I 
would say, in fact, that go to Latin America, Africa, the 
Pacific Islands, and read Chinese propaganda, and they do not 
mention Ukraine. It never gets a mention, and that is something 
really that is important to keep in mind. And it is 
condescending, I think, to think that the Chinese are so stupid 
that they cannot do anything without asking the Russians how to 
do it.
    Mr. Sessions. Yes, sir, I think that is a point of 
influence, and they have this line on influence, and let us go 
back to the things that we were speaking about that you have 
accurately, I think, described. The Chinese have a way that 
will diminish the amount of military-age young people that this 
country produces by aiming their drugs at us, by causing the 
deaths of thousands of young people if not addiction of other 
types of drugs. You believe that they are really very smart at 
getting at young people, causing their, if not addiction, 
demise or death, and that is why they keep coming up with new 
drugs that are designed for that purpose. Is that your point?
    Colonel Newsham. That is how it works. And also, sir, the 
successful economic warfare, which is part of political warfare 
that shipped so much of our manufacturing over to China, it 
leaves these societies that are just dead and vulnerable to 
drug warfare. Like we are saying, it all feeds on itself, and 
you can see the effect that has on our military. The death 
total we talk about, well, it is 10 times more people who were 
not killed but are not functional, and it is what the Chinese 
have done, the Chinese communists have done really throughout 
their entire existence.
    Mr. Sessions. And really, it is a parasite designed to kill 
the host. They have put it in front of Americans and Americans 
have, so to speak, taken the bait. Thank you very much for your 
feedback. I would now yield my time. The gentlewoman, Ms. 
Crockett, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. First of all, I 
do want to clear up some actual misinformation. Dr. Snyder, 
when you were testifying earlier, you were actually responding 
to questions that were posed by another colleague from Texas. 
One of the questions was who was the President in 2008. And to 
be clear, Obama ran in 2008, but Obama did not swear in until 
2009. So, when my colleague asked about invasions from Russia, 
actually in 2008, Russia was invading Georgia, and it was 
another Texan that was the President at the time, and that was 
George Bush. In addition to that, one of the things that my 
colleague did not inquire about, but I want to make sure we are 
clear about, is that Trump was President in 2019 when he 
threatened to withhold aid to the Ukrainians as they were being 
threatened by the Russians, so I do want to make sure that we 
do that.
    You know, what is wild to me is that this word ``patriot'' 
seems to be getting co-opted for propagandists because that is 
what they do, all right? So, we are going to talk about my 
colleague from Georgia, she talks about misinformation, and I 
do not know what she was talking about, but nevertheless, we 
can look at her own tweets and we can find plenty of 
misinformation, but we are just going to go through one 
specific tweet.
    Now, she said that we need to work with Israel to track 
down the serial numbers on any U.S. weapons used by Hamas 
against Israel. Dr. Snyder, I may be going out on a limb, but 
are you aware that that was actually just propaganda that was 
put out and there actually were not U.S. weapons that were 
being used by Hamas as she attempted to insinuate in this 
tweet?
    Dr. Snyder. First of all, I appreciate the clarification. I 
knew that the question, who were the American Presidents, it 
was going to be the toughest one I got from that side, so I 
appreciate your helping me out.
    Ms. Crockett. Understood.
    Dr. Snyder. Yes. I mean, obviously there what you have is a 
typical example of American Russian messaging, where the 
implicit idea is supposed to be we should not give weapons to 
Ukraine because they would end up going somewhere else. There 
is no evidence for that. It is hard to think of an example 
where American weapons have been leveraged with such success as 
on the Ukrainian battlefield.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. In fact, for some people, 
especially people that serve on the Committee, they may be 
surprised to know that it is actually a former Russian 
president and Putin's sidekick, Dmitry, and I do not want to 
slaughter his name, so, I am going to say Dmitry M., who 
actually she quote tweeted. See, the problem that we are having 
and the reason that we are bringing up Russia as well, is 
because Russia is a threat as well as China, so we are not 
going to sit here and pretend as if it is only one or the 
other. But the biggest problem that we have is we have people 
that sit in this chamber and they spread the misinformation. If 
it was left in Russia or China, whatever. But the problem is 
that you have people that sit in positions of power and they 
have a $2 million budget. You think that they will call on some 
staff to find out if they were telling the truth about the 
things that they are putting on social media, but instead it 
works for their rhetoric.
    And as we talk about rhetoric, something else that was 
appalling to me was this insinuation that when you look at the 
Ukrainians, which is why we are having problems getting the 
funding that Ukraine needs, is because people in this chamber 
push misinformation and disinformation. They want to talk about 
the Ukrainians got all of these Nazis. Well, let me tell you 
something. You can find Nazis anywhere. You can find them right 
here in the United States, in fact, a bunch of the people that 
they are calling victims and prisoners of war, also known as 
convicted felons from January 6.
    I have an article that I would like to enter into the 
record by unanimous consent that says, ``Neo-Nazi January 6 
Rioter Pleads Guilty.''
    Mr. LaTurner. [Presiding] Without objection.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. So, here is the point. We 
have people in this chamber that are actually causing just as 
much a threat, if not more of a threat, to our own country. We 
should be talking about holding our very own accountable for 
the misinformation and disinformation that they are spreading. 
Whether it is coming out of China, whether it is coming out of 
Russia, or whoever is peddling it, it is a problem because 
right now what we see is that people are dying, and we cannot 
get the support that we need from the public because they 
continue to peddle lies.
    And I am tired of it because I did not come to this chamber 
to play games. I came to this chamber to answer to the people, 
the American people, and to make sure that we keep the American 
people safe. And if we do not get something done, as they talk 
about the border, I do want to be clear--the only reason we 
have not gotten funding for the border is because the House 
Republicans here killed the bill that they actually sent us 
from the Senate side. If they want to do some work, let me tell 
you something, the Democrats are ready, and it seems like the 
Senate Republicans are ready, too. They just need to get to it 
and stop peddling Putin's lies. Thank you, and I yield.
    Mr. LaTurner. The gentlelady yields back. I will recognize 
myself for 5 minutes.
    Thank you to our witnesses for being here today as we 
address the greatest threat to America's national security, the 
Chinese Communist Party. CCP will stop at nothing to infiltrate 
American supply chains and gain insight into our most critical 
military operations and homeland security practices. Over the 
past few years, we have witnessed President Xi's increased 
aggression within America's borders, buying up farmland, spying 
on us with high altitude surveillance balloons, operating 
illegal Chinese police stations, and stealing valuable 
intellectual property. The threat posed by the CCP extends far 
beyond the confines of any single industry or entity, with an 
ultimate goal of entwining themselves into every aspect of our 
economy, society, and governance, a threat I am seeing 
firsthand in my district.
    Our Nation's greatest adversary is currently setting up 
shop in Johnson County, Kansas under the guise of Cnano 
Technology USA, a Chinese-backed manufacturer firm with 
alarming ties to CCP military and intelligence services. This 
new manufacturing facility is just 34 miles away from Fort 
Leavenworth, 72 miles from Whiteman Air Force Base, 105 miles 
from Fort Riley, and 165 miles from McConnell Air Force Base. 
Allowing Cnano USA to operate near these significant military 
installations and become embedded in our local supply chains 
opens the door to Chinese espionage and puts our military 
intelligence, trade, research, and intellectual property at 
risk of falling into the hands of the CCP leaders. Make no 
mistake, Cnano USA is a wolf in sheep's clothing and poses a 
clear threat to the United States and to the state of Kansas.
    In January of this year, I wrote to Secretary Yellen and 
Secretary Austin, urging them as members of the Committee on 
Foreign Investment in the United States to open an immediate 
investigation into Cnano USA. After the Biden Administration 
refused to act, I urged the Kansas legislature to pass 
commonsense solutions to ensure we have tools at our disposal 
to protect Kansas from CCP infiltration. As President Xi and 
the CCP continue to target American communities, it is more 
important than ever that we work to stop Chinese-backed 
businesses from exploiting our supply chains and gaining access 
to our crucial military bases across the country. I look 
forward to hearing from our witnesses today.
    Mr. Mattis, Cnano Technology USA is a subsidiary of Cnano 
Jiangsu. Cnano Jiangsu has repeatedly received funding from the 
CCP for participation in state initiatives, including in the 
CCP's 863 program. Can you explain what the CCP's 863 program 
was and the purpose of it and other similar programs?
    Mr. Mattis. So, the 863 program is named after the date 
that it was launched, which is March 1986. And it is 
essentially a state investment vehicle to channel funding for 
national defense modernization and civilian technologies that 
would facilitate that. And although they have changed the 
names, I think at least twice over the years, and come up with 
some, you know, related programs, it still retains that focus 
on military modernization.
    Mr. LaTurner. Let me stay with you. Cnano Jiangsu has also 
cooperated in the past with the CCP's United Front Work 
Department, and the united front is actively engaged in 
political warfare in the U.S. Could you explain how the united 
front might use a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese entity to 
conduct non-kinetic warfare tactics such as economic warfare?
    Mr. Mattis. So, the united front, there could very well be 
in sort of the Chinese parent company a party committee that 
has a United Front Work Department attached to it and works for 
that company. It would largely be involved in mobilizing the 
employees of that company and channeling their efforts to 
support their authority's apparatus. The most likely way that 
it would be involved in any form of intellectual property theft 
and economic espionage would be in providing tips and leads to 
the, essentially, the Ministry of State Security or the local 
state security department of Jiangsu Province.
    Mr. LaTurner. So, here we have a company that has received 
money from the 863 program and is engaged with the united front 
in the past. Should we believe that a U.S. subsidiary of a PRC 
company is completely divorced from its PRC base umbrella?
    Mr. Mattis. It is possible, but I think when you look at 
the way in which U.S. media has reported on the supposed 
division between ByteDance and TikTok, that TikTok has not 
operated as though it were a separate company but rather as a 
constituent part of ByteDance, with ByteDance employees 
exercising authorities there. There are reasons that I have the 
similar concerns with AVIC and its subsidiaries in the United 
States, one of the PRC's major military aircraft manufacturers. 
So, I am not sure if any company that I know has been very 
closely tied to the party state and its objectives that you can 
separate off, and I am not sure that many of the U.S. employees 
understand what that relationship is.
    Mr. LaTurner. Yes. Thank you very much, and thank you to 
all the witnesses. I now recognize Ms. Porter of California 
next.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you so much. Republicans have told us 
today that China poses an existential threat to the United 
States. Their solution to that is to spend, and spend, and 
spend on fancy weapons systems, often built in their districts, 
that they hope will deter conflict. So, now we have aircraft 
carriers, fighter jets, and tanks designed to fight a war that 
may never happen. But when Congress does that, what they are 
not doing is using our taxpayer dollars to address the problems 
that the Chinese Communist Party is actually causing. China is 
fighting every day to break international law and to expand its 
reach. Mr. Mattis, could you briefly describe China's claims in 
the South China Sea?
    Mr. Mattis. They have an expansive claim called the nine-
dash line that stretches well beyond any recognizable feature 
and under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea of what 
would be recognizable territory.
    Ms. Porter. So, do you believe this is an illegal claim?
    Mr. Mattis. Whether or not I believe it is illegal is 
irrelevant because there is an International Court that has 
decided that some of those claims are illegal.
    Ms. Porter. OK. So, I want to make that clear. China has 
taken an expansive, unlawful territorial claim to the South 
China Sea, and they have ignored international law. This is a 
very, very clear and important example of China not playing by 
the rules, not following international law, and that behavior 
is causing real harm in people's lives, whether that is in the 
Philippines or in Vietnam. Mr. Mattis, can you briefly describe 
for us illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing?
    Mr. Mattis. It is exactly what you described it, but China, 
the PRC, has a particular role on this given that their deep 
sea fishing fleet is far larger than any of the other 
countries, and because it is illegal and unreported, 
unregulated, it is also a nexus for forced labor. And those 
ships have been violating the borders and exclusive economic 
zone of other countries, including the, you know, the western 
hemisphere. So, I am not quite sure how far you want to go but 
that is quite a bit.
    Ms. Porter. No, that is perfect. So, what we have is 
Chinese fishing fleets. They are using their fishing fleets to 
expand their territorial claims, their international power to 
exert power over other countries. When they do this in Vietnam, 
they are attempting to essentially roll over Vietnam. They are 
just another country in the CCP's mind that is standing in 
their way of achieving absolutist power over regional and 
global commerce. So, China is trying to bulldoze over Vietnam, 
including by stealing its fish, and they have largely depleted 
Vietnam's fisheries. What are the consequences to Vietnam?
    Mr. Mattis. There is obviously the loss of economic 
revenue. There is the sort of impoverishment of local fishers.
    Ms. Porter. How does that help China?
    Mr. Mattis. Well, one, most seafood is processed in the 
PRC, and, therefore, it sort of makes Vietnam and other 
countries dependent upon that processed food.
    Ms. Porter. Yes. So, I mean, look, China is ruthlessly 
expanding its power, breaking the rule of law, and the Chinese 
Communist Party calls this seeking strategic advantage, in part 
through what they refer to as the three warfares. General 
Spalding, what are some of the risks of China being successful 
in breaking international law without consequence?
    Dr. Spalding. I think it emboldening everybody else to do 
the same thing, and I think that is the challenge here. We have 
seen a complete breakdown in the liberal democratic order as a 
result.
    Ms. Porter. So, Mr. Mattis, does Vietnam have the military 
capacity to secure its exclusive economic zone from Chinese 
incursions?
    Ms. Mattis. No.
    Ms. Porter. So, Vietnam cannot effectively safeguard its 
own resources, China is taking advantage of that, and China and 
the Communist Party are hurting people and breaking 
international law to become more powerful, and, ultimately, to 
expand their power in a way that will threaten U.S. interests 
in the long term. So, what is the United States doing about 
this? Mr. Mattis, which U.S. Agency protects global fisheries? 
Do you know?
    Mr. Mattis. I believe it is a combination of the Coast 
Guard and NOAA. And as I recall, there was an initiative that 
was run by the NSC that was at the end of the Trump 
Administration and carried through in the early Biden 
Administration to take action on IUU fishing.
    Ms. Porter. So, it is the Coast Guard. Do you know how many 
cutters the Coast Guard has in the Western Pacific?
    Mr. Mattis. I am going to guess somewhere between zero and 
two.
    Ms. Porter. Yes, five, five cutters to protect roughly 40 
million square miles. So, look, in Washington we have a gadget 
problem. Everyone wants the fanciest weapons systems, but to 
combat illegal fishing, to combat the influence of the CCP, you 
do not need stealth bombers, you do not need an aircraft 
carrier. What you need is a relatively inexpensive Coast Guard 
cutter and funding for good Coasties who want to serve their 
country. That is the tools that we ought to be deploying today 
to counter Chinese influence. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the 
extra time, and I yield back.
    Mr. LaTurner. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair 
recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Langworthy.
    Mr. Langworthy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The 
Chinese Communist Party's united front operation has formed 
Chinese Students and Scholars Associations to serve as a tool 
to spy on Chinese nationals studying at foreign universities 
and mobilize them against views that are critical to the CCP. 
In practice, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association 
serve as eyes and ears for the Chinese government on American 
campuses and allows the CCP to monitor and retaliate against 
Chinese nationals studying abroad. The Students and Scholars 
Associations receive funding directly from Chinese diplomatic 
staff and work to ensure ideological uniformity through 
intimidation and pressure tactics. The CCP has also worked to 
outpace the U.S. in producing STEM field Ph.D. graduates and 
has gained access into every level of America's education 
system.
    So, Mr. Mattis, it is apparent to me that not many 
Americans are aware of the CCP's operations on our campuses. 
Could you explain in more detail how these united front 
operations on American campuses are overseen by PRC's Ministry 
of Education and how they are working to influence and monitor 
Chinese students abroad?
    Mr. Mattis. Fundamentally, the PRC and the party state is 
trying to prevent Chinese students from having a free and full 
experience on a U.S. university campus. This has been an issue 
for quite some time where the effort to control what Chinese 
students participate in and what they are able to experience at 
U.S. university is constrained and controlled. A friend of mine 
who worked at a university was approached by one of the 
professors who had a student, it was an American History class, 
who said, I want to participate in this project, please do not 
put me in a group with another Chinese student. Because if I 
am, then I will not be able to participate, and I want to do 
this project in a real way. So, that is one of the ways in 
which harm is done.
    The second way, through the CSSAs or through Confucius 
Institute or other researching, is that it creates an interest 
in a particular kind of controlled engagement with the PRC or 
PRC institutions that the university sort of supports and 
carries on and accepts, for example, certain kinds of 
programming, and interjects other kinds of programming, in the 
name of preserving that relationships that they consider to be 
productive.
    Mr. Langworthy. Very good. Thank you. And not only is the 
CCP directly influencing our students in our universities on a 
daily basis but they are reaping the rewards of our education 
as they quickly are outpacing the U.S. in producing STEM Ph.D. 
graduates. On top of this, the U.S. has continued to lose more 
and more jobs to China.
    [Chart]
    As you can see in the graphic I have behind me, you know, 
due to our Nation's ongoing trade deficit, it has never been 
more obvious and right in our face than the CCP is targeting 
our schools and our jobs. So now, Colonel Newsham, are you 
worried by this trend in STEM field graduates, and can you 
discuss more of the concerning outcomes that you see if the CCP 
comes to dominate the science and technology sector?
    Colonel Newsham. Yes, sir, very concerned. And as I think I 
had mentioned earlier, whenever you see the announcement of 
some really impressive advance in technology at an American 
university, it almost always has PRC nationals involved in it. 
And where this is most important, from my perspective, is that 
for too many decades, we treated the Chinese as if they could 
never possibly be our equals, that the Chinese People's 
Liberation Army would never be able to take us on. Well, they 
are able in certain circumstances to beat us today. And they 
have the technological advances that they are putting to 
military use in outer space and on the, you know, ground sea 
and below the sea, that it is breathtaking how they have done 
it. We have actually helped them along in that process, and it 
is something that we could end up on the short end of a fight, 
if it comes.
    Mr. Langworthy. Well, thank you very much. I want to take 
the remainder of my time and look at some of the troubling 
instances that the Committee is aware of in which the CCP has 
sought to directly influence our children and our education 
system. One instance that I find very concerning, especially in 
the wake of several cyberattacks targeted toward the United 
States over the past few years, occurred just recently in 
August 2023. Just down the road in Fairfax County, in the 
public school districts, the superintendent indicated that 
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology 
received $3.6 million from groups linked to the Chinese 
Communist Party. Colonel Newsham, it is astonishing that this 
would be allowed at any school in the United States, let alone 
a science and technology school. How does this pattern of 
working to infiltrate American schools fit within the CCP's 
broad trend of political warfare in the United States?
    Colonel Newsham. Well, that is what they do, and it is not 
just the Thomas Jefferson High School. You have Confucius 
classrooms. We hear about Confucius Institutes and colleges, 
but the Confucius classrooms start off from preschool all the 
way up through elementary school, and you indoctrinate a new 
generation with the idea that the Chinese communists, who 
killed 50 million of their own people in peacetime and good 
weather, are really just lovable pandas. It is just 
breathtakingly successful and political warfare.
    Mr. Langworthy. Thank you very much, and I yield back.
    Mr. LaTurner. Thank you. The Chair recognizes the 
gentlelady from Michigan, Ms. Tlaib, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think my colleagues know 
where I am going to go with this because I consistently try to 
get them re-centered. I am really sick and tired of us not 
leaving the campaigning at the Capitol steps. This is just 
another Committee hearing where we are bringing campaign 
activity into this chamber and not being honest with the 
American people. This is not what our residents sent us to 
Washington to work on. I really do got a better idea, and I 
know Chairman Comer has my ideas. I send it to him all the 
time, but I really want to talk about what makes the lives of 
our residents difficult every single day, like greedy 
corporations raising prices to pay their executives and 
shareholders; polluters that literally treat communities in my 
district, like poisoning them, as the cost of doing business; 
politicians that put their own interests before the residents, 
many of which in this Committee that own stocks in war weapon 
manufacturing.
    So, when we do have to vote ``yes'' or my colleagues have 
to get up on the Floor and vote for more bombs and weapons in 
other countries, they actually make money, personal money. 
Their stock values go up. Look it up. People like our 
disgraced, twice impeached President, who represents the worst 
of the unchecked American capitalism, who as we speak, is 
sitting in a courtroom as the first-ever American President to 
face criminal prosecution.
    Mr. Chair, earlier this year, the Committee's own 
Democratic staff, you know, produced a report showing that 
Trump received more than $7.8 million in unconstitutional 
payments from foreign governments while he was Commander-in-
Chief. This is important because we talk about, you know, 
influence in our elections, gerrymandering in our districts, 
corrupting our democracy, and it is outside influence, but it 
is happening right here on our soil, and it happened on our 
soil by a sitting President. The report was based on a limited 
set of documents produced by his own accounting firm, Mazars. 
Like, literally it said $7.8 million in unconstitutional 
payments from foreign governments while he was our Commander-
in-Chief. However, before the Committee could have received any 
more documents related to Russia, Chairman Comer and the former 
impeached President's lawyer stopped the production of any 
further documents.
    And, Professor Snyder, I do not know if you have been 
following it, you know. It is something that I know our Ranking 
Member Raskin heard me talk about this all the time--I always 
call him my professor--about the emoluments clause and how 
dangerous and how connected it is of just even the subject 
matter of what we are talking about today. But do you think, 
you know, if the Committee were interested in understanding the 
threats of political warfare facing the United States as well 
as the influence of peddling directed by foreign governments 
against our country, shouldn't it demand that the accounting 
firm of the forever impeached President produce all those 
payments received by the President from foreign governments?
    Dr. Snyder. I would have certainly thought so since every 
serious scholarly treatment and every also document that I have 
read from the Chinese side stresses the importance of such 
financial relationships in recruitment and long-distance 
management.
    Ms. Tlaib. I agree, and yet instead, you know, the current 
Committee have worked to help the forever impeached President 
bury the evidence and keep the facts from the American people. 
I think it is incredibly dangerous. And last, just because it 
really made me angry, and I think it makes my constituents 
angry, but I want to submit for the record this article called, 
``Air Force Crew Made an Odd Stop on a Routine Trip: Trump's 
Scottish Resort.'' Can I submit it for the record?
    Mr. LaTurner. Without objection.
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes. This one stuck really, really with me and 
just is so blatant. The article details how military crews 
flying supplies to and from the Middle East were redirected 
from their usual overnight stops at the U.S. military bases in 
Europe to a small commercial airport in Scotland outside then 
President Trump's Turnberry golf resort where they stayed with 
our tax dollars. This, despite the fact that both refueling and 
the cost of overnight food and lodging for the crew were less 
expensive at established infrequently used U.S. military bases 
where they typically stopped. Surprise, surprise for all my 
Committee colleagues here.
    Trump's resort, which lost $4.5 million in 2017, saw all of 
a sudden--whoopee--an increase of $3 million in profits in 
2018. Shameful. It is disgusting, and it is just these kinds of 
things, pay to play, I mean, having literally a sitting 
President run his organization, his business out of the White 
House is equally as dangerous to our democracy and the 
influence on our country. This is something that I hope my 
colleagues really take seriously because I do not care if it is 
a Democrat or Republican, no one ever should sit there in the 
White House, out of the Oval Office, running the business to 
profit themselves. It is unconstitutional and, again, demands 
that kind of accountability, and that is what I want this 
Committee to address. Thank you so much. I yield.
    Mr. LaTurner. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair 
recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Moskowitz, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, let me 
start by saying that, obviously Chairman Comer is not here, but 
I think in light of what we witnessed earlier, I think it is 
important that, together, as a Committee, that we begin 
Chairman Comer's therapy session, right? You know, a Member of 
the other side wanted to confirm what the title of the hearing 
was, right, Chinese propaganda?
    Well, we know the title of the hearing certainly is not 
about impeachment anymore, and Chairman Comer has suffered 
tremendous loss, and we all know in our life what it is like to 
suffer tremendous loss. There are all sorts of different stages 
of grief, and that is the loss, obviously, of his impeachment 
hearing. And everyone deals with that in different ways. And 
sometimes it takes time to grieve and struggle and fill that 
hole, that void that now exists now that he no longer has 
impeachment. But the only way we as a Committee are going to 
help Chairman Comer get better is we have to get to the root 
cause, right?
    So, for today's therapy session, OK, I want to talk about 
denial, right? The denial that the impeachment hearings are 
over, and the denial, obviously, that he started with the 1023 
Form, which was Russian disinformation. And so, you know, 
Chairman Comer's psychology teaches us that, you know, someone 
might be, like him, using denial as a defense mechanism. And 
signs include that you refuse to talk about the problem, you 
find ways to justify your behavior, you blame other people or 
outside forces for causing the problem, you persist in your 
behavior despite the consequences, you promise to address the 
problem maybe in the future, or you avoid thinking about the 
problem.
    And so, in addition to these signs that Chairman Comer has 
been displaying, as we saw in the beginning, you know, he also 
might be feeling hopeless or helpless. I just want the Chairman 
to know that we are pulling for him. We really are. I know it 
has been hard to become someone who was used by the Russians, 
but the good news is, is that he set this hearing today on 
Chinese propaganda, because we have already lost him to Russian 
propaganda. I mean, we got to build a force field around the 
Chairman and make sure we do not lose him to Chinese 
propaganda, as well.
    [Chart]
    And, in fact, you can see behind me, these are quotes from 
the Chairman, Chairman Comer, every single, solitary time, and 
there are hundreds more, that he went on TV in interviews and 
talked about this 1023 Form, which was all Russian 
disinformation, but we got to make the Chairman understand that 
it is going to be OK. We will get him through this, but he has 
got to recognize that denial is not just a river in Egypt. He 
is going to have to face the fact that he was taken by the 
Russians.
    Now, I want to address something else that went on in this 
Committee by another Member, and I say this as someone whose 
grandparents escaped the Holocaust. So, my grandmother was part 
of the Kindertransport out of Germany. Her parents were killed 
in Auschwitz. My grandfather, her husband, escaped Poland from 
the pogroms. You know, the idea that we pretend that that kind 
of behavior is acceptable and regular. There are no 
concentration camps in Ukraine. They are not taking babies and 
shooting them in the air because they are Jewish. There are no 
gas chambers. There are no ovens. They are not railing people 
in. They are not ripping gold out of people's mouth. They are 
not taking stuff out of their home. They are not trying to 
erase a people. They are Ukrainians.
    Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler. The only people who know 
about Nazis and Hitler are the 10 million people and their 
families who lost their loved ones, generations of people who 
were wiped out. It is enough of this disgusting behavior using 
Nazis as propaganda. You want to talk about Nazis, get yourself 
over to the Holocaust Museum. You go see what Nazis did. It is 
despicable that we use that and we allow it, and we sit here 
like somehow it is regular.
    Mr. Chairman, I welcome you back. I am sorry. We were 
trying to talk together and, you know, get you through the 
hearing, but I look forward potentially to talking to you at a 
future session. So, thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. The 
Chair now recognizes myself for questions.
    Mr. Mattis, you mentioned in your testimony that there was 
a shortage of expertise in the Federal Government with respect 
to China. Would you say that our government is ill-prepared for 
what China currently has with respect to their schemes against 
our government and our way of life? Does the government have a 
plan?
    Mr. Mattis. I would put it this way, that we do not have 
enough China expertise to execute our own policy. For example, 
we are asking a department to enforce a major piece of trade 
legislation, and yet for a couple of years they were relying on 
Google Translate for their language resource.
    Chairman Comer. And explain why that is important that we 
do have a plan, and that is the purpose of this hearing. And I 
apologize that there are, you know, clowns like the last 
questioner that get off topic, but explain why that is 
important to have a plan.
    Mr. Mattis. Well, in some form or another, nearly every 
Federal department has some role to play, whether it is because 
they fund research, and, therefore, they have a responsibility 
to maintain the integrity of that research. They have a 
responsibility in some form to protecting constitutional rights 
and the exercise of those which the CCP is attempting to 
restrict inside the United States. So, you can kind of go down 
each one and see that.
    Chairman Comer. Exactly. Colonel Newsham, what is 
unrestricted warfare, China's master plan to destroy America?
    Colonel Newsham. What unrestricted warfare refers to is 
Chinese approach to going after its enemy, and the United 
States is the one they call their main enemy.
    Chairman Comer. That publication states that the 
battlefield will be everywhere, right?
    Colonel Newsham. That is right.
    Chairman Comer. What does that mean for America?
    Colonel Newsham. It means anything goes. You know, we tend 
to expect a war to start on the day the shooting starts and we 
say we are at war. To the Chinese, we are already at war.
    Chairman Comer. You have said that the U.S. needs its own 
political warfare strategy against the Chinese Communist Party. 
What should that look like?
    Colonel Newsham. Well, it needs to be, first a 
comprehensive plan that you use your every tool you have got, 
economic, financial, media, propaganda. But more than anything, 
you have got to have an awareness you are actually at war, and 
then you have got to have somebody who is responsible for 
running it. I cannot see who in the USG is the person who does 
political warfare. I saw an interview with a State Department 
official testifying recently, and you could tell he had no idea 
about political warfare. Someone has got to be in charge and 
responsible for it.
    Chairman Comer. So, General Spalding, how does the Chinese 
Communist Party differ from the Soviet Union in its approach to 
political warfare against America?
    Dr. Spalding. I do not think it differs in its approach. It 
differs in the tools it has available to itself. So, the Soviet 
Union was cutoff from the global economy, so globalization was 
not a thing, and it was not a part of it. And then furthermore, 
Silicon Valley had not developed all the tools of influence and 
technological reach into our own homes into each individual 
citizen. So, those tools far surpass anything that were 
available to the Soviet Union in terms of the active measures.
    Chairman Comer. So, how could our methods of combating the 
Soviet Union work against the Chinese Communist Party?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, as I mentioned previously, bringing 
back COCOM, bringing back the U.S. Information Agency, making 
public diplomacy an independent effort within the executive 
branch and then focusing all the agencies and departments of 
the executive branch on this political warfare. For example, 
right now, you have, within the White House you have the 
National Security Council focused on national security, 
National Economic Council focused on trade, and they fight over 
what challenges are coming in because of the Chinese Communist 
Party. They need to be united.
    Chairman Comer. Is there any existing agency or any 
existing person within the government, our present government 
structure, that you would put in charge of trying to educate 
this Administration in the cabinets and the divisions within 
each cabinet about the potential perils of the CCP?
    Dr. Spalding. Well, that is the job of the intelligence 
agencies, but they are not really focused on political warfare. 
So, unless you get them to basically lead off that effort in 
terms of explaining to the executive branch what political 
warfare is, and until you unite all the agencies and 
departments against this threat, you are not going to do 
anything against it.
    Chairman Comer. Mr. Mattis--I will ask each of you--is 
there a single person or agency in the government that should 
be in charge of that? You agree with the intelligence 
community, or you have----
    Mr. Mattis. I think this is fairly clearly the job of the 
President, the Secretary of State, the National Security 
Council, and the supporting staff. And when we have done this 
well in the past, we had an integrated system that was looking 
at what was going on, and we were also looking at the other 
tools that we had at our disposal. You know, we understood the 
Marshall Plan, the art of political warfare, and we understood 
some of our education, cultural exchange, the idea of putting 
Americans abroad so that other countries could have a true 
experience of Americans rather than the Soviet propaganda.
    Chairman Comer. Right. Colonel, you have a response?
    Colonel Newsham. Well, it is a tough challenge. I would 
say, if you run it out of the National Security Council, it 
could work, but you have to have the right people, some people 
who understand that have that personality that can make it 
work.
    Chairman Comer. So, it looks like you have to have the 
will. You have to first of all understand the threat that China 
poses. You have to have the will to combat China, before we 
could task agencies and specific people with a business model 
to combat China's growing influence in the United States, and 
it is kind of like you have to have a will to secure the border 
before you can secure the border, so I hope that we can do 
that.
    You know, we have seen from Representative Khanna and 
Representative Krishnamoorthi who have serious credible 
questions today, and I appreciate that, that this is a huge 
problem in America. And it does not sound like the government 
right now is taking it very seriously, and we need to change 
that, and I hope that the work of this Committee moving 
forward, and hopefully we can continue to find a couple of 
reasonable Members of the Committee on the other side of the 
aisle to work in a bipartisan manner to see that that happens.
    So, that concludes our questioning. I want to thank our 
witnesses again today for your testimony. With that, and 
without objection, all Members have 5 legislative days within 
which to submit materials.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, are we doing closings?
    Chairman Comer. I had not planned on it.
    Mr. Raskin. Oh, I thought your staff had told us that we 
were----
    Chairman Comer. OK, I will yield you, how much were you 
told?
    Mr. Raskin. Just, like, 45 minutes, something like that.
    Chairman Comer. Oh, yes.
    Mr. Raskin. No, I am happy to take a minute or two, 
whatever you think we need to close.
    Chairman Comer. Take a minute.
    Mr. Raskin. You are very kind and generous, Mr. Chairman. I 
want to thank Professor Snyder, the Minority witness, for his 
truly extraordinary testimony today, which I know will be of 
great assistance to the Committee, for his brilliant 
scholarship, and above all, for his passionate citizenship 
because not everybody would take the time out of the middle of 
their teaching week to come do it. So, thank you.
    There were several words that recurred through the day. One 
of them was ``authoritarianism,'' one of them was 
``corruption,'' and one of them was ``propaganda,'' and the 
opposite of all those things is really what we need to be 
seeking. The opposite of authoritarianism is democracy and 
freedom. The authoritarian model is all about corruption, and 
the opposite of that model of government is government in the 
public interest for the common good rather than for the small 
clique that surrounds the leader and his family, whoever gets 
into power. They use propaganda in order to prop up the system 
in order to fool people to divide people to set people against 
each other, and the opposite of propaganda is education.
    So, I want to thank you, Professor Snyder, for 
participating in that, and your fellow witnesses for 
contributing to our education. But one of the ways that we lose 
to authoritarian states is if they can get their claws into our 
leaders, either through money or kompromat or psychological 
manipulation. I just want to show you what happens when our 
leaders cave in to China and to Russia.
    [Chart]
    So, here are some of the tweets that were sent out by the 
last President about President Xi and China: ``smart, 
brilliant, everything perfect,'' ``we love each other,'' 
``friend of mine, a very, very good man,'' ``there is nobody 
like that, the look, the brain, the whole thing,'' my feeling 
toward you is an incredibly warm one,'' ``a brilliant man,'' 
``if you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play 
the role of President Xi, you couldn't find it. There is nobody 
like that, the look, the brain, the whole thing.'' And here is 
the ex-President on Putin. ``His invasion of Ukraine is genius 
and pretty savvy,'' ``Putin was smart,'' ``the man has very 
strong control over a country,'' ``a tough cookie with great 
charm.''
    So, we need some democratic self-respect in order to combat 
the propaganda, and I am also happy that we saw today a few 
Members actually demonstrate what propaganda running through 
American politicians looks like. Thank you for calling this 
very significant and important hearing, Mr. Chairman, and I 
yield back to you.
    Chairman Comer. Yield back. I will recognize myself for 
closing remarks.
    Again, I want to thank our three credible witnesses that 
were here today to talk about this subject. This is something 
that this Committee is going to take very seriously moving 
forward. We recognize the fact that our government does not 
have a plan to combat China's growing influence, and we 
recognize that it does not appear they recognize the threat.
    In the private sector, I am a farmer. All my life I have 
owned farms, graduated from Western Kentucky University with a 
degree in agriculture. I was Commissioner of Agriculture in 
Kentucky, which is an elected statewide office, before I came 
to Congress. And one of the things that I always talked about, 
agriculture, was that in agriculture we are the one industry 
that had a trade surplus with China, but that has changed in 
the last 12 months. China now has a trade surplus with us in 
agriculture. And when you talk about national security, there 
is no greater threat to our national security than the need to 
have a safe, healthy, reliable food supply. I wanted to mention 
that because the growing influence of China is now a major 
threat to every industry in America.
    Ms. McClain talked about the electric vehicle industry and 
the dependence on China, and that seems like the position of 
this Administration, to push everything to the electric 
vehicles. Well, that makes us even more dependent on China. 
That is a problem. The policies are a problem. But we need to 
recognize the fact that China manipulates our currency, China 
steals our intellectual property and our patent. So, our 
private companies that invest billions of dollars in research 
and development, it is all being stolen by the Chinese 
Communist Party.
    And then the last thing, our education system in America. 
What is very concerning to me and something I did not know 
until we started this investigation was how much anonymous 
money flows into our research universities in America, and the 
University of Penn is at the top of the list. And who worked at 
the University of Penn before they came back to working for the 
government? The Secretary of State and the current President of 
the United States.
    I think this is a problem because what we have seen by Dr. 
Foxx, who is presiding over her own committee hearing down the 
hall on antisemitism in our public universities, is that we 
have got a lot of indoctrination that is taking place in our 
universities that is antidemocratic. I believe it is what is 
fueling a lot of the support for Hamas, and it seems like 
growing faction of the Democrat Party now, so this is----
    Mr. Raskin. There is not a single member of our party who 
supports Hamas.
    Chairman Comer. That seems to be a very huge issue in 
America, the disinformation campaign that is taking place in 
our universities, but where is it being funded? And I think 
that one of the things that we need to focus on in this 
Committee is greater transparency with where all this money is 
coming from into these universities. Yes, we have done a decent 
job identifying the problem with TikTok and the House has acted 
on that, but I think we need to go a lot further, and I think 
that we need better preparedness within our Federal Government 
in every agency. Whether it is the Department of Agriculture, 
or the Department of Education, the Department of Defense, the 
Department of Energy. Every agency needs to first recognize 
that we have a threat from China. And second, we need to have a 
plan to combat that threat to identify when China does 
something counter to our interest and then have a plan to 
combat that.
    So, I think you all did a great job today talking about 
that. I appreciate your time and look forward to working with 
you all in the future.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent 
request. I want to introduce into the record the White House's 
Indo-Pacific strategy released in February 2022, reaffirming 
the country's commitment to deterring PRC military aggression 
in the Taiwan Strait, and a fact sheet detailing the $4 billion 
requested in the President's budget request for 2025 for a more 
free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific bolstering U.S. alliances.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    With that, and without objection, all Members have 5 
legislative days within which to submit materials and 
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses.
    If there is no further business, without objection, the 
Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:57 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                 [all]