Defending America from the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Warfare, Part I

e for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e 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 US 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 can not 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 through 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 depended on cheap and sometimes dangerous goods made in China digital fentol like Tik Tock and actual fentol the CCP is determined to achieve its goal of defeating America on the global stage if we don't understand what the CCP is and that this authoritarian regime considers America its main enemy we cannot secure our country the CCP these 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 non-members to advance CCP aims these networks are organized in the united front work department and dispersed throughout the entire party General Secretary Z has described the united front as the ccp's magic weapon the united front carries out relationship focused in Ence 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 interest 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 to crusade to intentionally divide Americans often by exagerating existing societal divisions to be clear it is the Chinese Communist Party who is to blame here not Chinese 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 the CCP is grave you must step up and recognize what the CCP is seeking to do to our country if agencies don't see that the CCP is our adversary they can't 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 don't have a China strategy Creative Solutions and proactive aggressive methods our colleagues in the Min in the minority appear uninterested in addressing CCP unrestricted Warfare instead of the of any number of experts on China who they could have invited they've in 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 did not want to confront the threat of Chinese Communist party's political Warfare against the United States I believe that is a serious mistake it's a mistake because Democrats are doing exactly what the CCP experts 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 beaning 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 thank you kindly Mr chairman authoritarian States use propaganda to dehumanize their victims and to mask their brutality the propaganda purpose Al as Huxley said is to quote make one set of people forget that another set of people's 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 make people forget about Alexi nalni whom he poisoned falsely imprisoned and killed the Chinese government tries to make people forget about the humanity of millions of Tibetans and wagers who president XI mercilessly persecutes incarcerates and represses but with their intensive programs of propaganda today autocrats seek not only 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 UK Ukraine as Prime Minister kashida 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 this showdown the Democratic societies of the world are the central psychological and political ba 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 wared 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 washingon post reported on a secret document written by Russia's foreign Ministry that leaked out his artic 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 quote 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 extri 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's advancing efforts to influence the US 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 democra 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 nodes bring China Chinese and Russian propaganda together to undermine US foreign policy quote in February according to the institute for strategic dialogue a Chinese account on X calling itself a western name alongside a mega 2024 reference shared a video from RT the Russian TV network controlled by the Kremlin to claim that Mr Biden in the CIA had sent a Neo-Nazi gangster to fight in Ukraine The Narrative was debunked by the investigative group bellan cat 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 Mega propaganda and disinformation 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 Vladimir zalinski 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 mega 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 secure Security package to Ukraine recycled a defamatory lie about Ukraine she tweeted it is anti-Semitic to make his really Aid contingent on funding Ukrainian Nazis I learned of this tweet from an outraged ukrainian-american constituent whose Christian family was involved in you saving Ukrainian Jews from both Hitler and Stalin she said it was quote painful beyond words to see margorie Taylor green 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 smirnoff's Infamous FBI form 1020 replete with salacious allegations about multi-million 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 offense 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 polic 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'm happy to say it won't 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 McCall warned earlier this month that quote Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States unfortunately and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base chairman McCall has called out members of the GOP for spreading Russian propaganda intelligence committee chair Mike Turner reiterated McCall's warning and added that specific disinformation ployes have penetrated Congress as a result of Russian propaganda he said quote 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 campaign 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's time we work together on this project Mr chairman and I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses especially professor Snider 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 ranking member yields back on his opening statement about the threat from China I think I'm pleased to introduce our Witnesses here today Colonel Grant nusum is a retired US Marine Colonel uh he is currently a research fellow at the Japan forum for strategic studies focusing on Asia Pacific defense political and economic matters he is also a senior fellow for the center for security policy he was the first US Marine liaison officer to the Japan ground self-defense force and previously served as the reserve head of intelligence for marine forces specific he also has a substantial experience in Foreign Service Colonel Nome will be testifying in his personal capacity at today's hearing Peter Mattis is the president of the Jamestown Foundation most recently was a senior fellow with the US House select committee on the strategic competition between the US 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 career as a Counter Intelligence Analyst at the CIA General Robert Spalding is CEO of simper AI and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute where his work focuses on us China relations economic and National Security and the asia-pacific military balance he's a retired Brigadier General in the US Air Force and has more than 26 years of experience in strategy and diplomacy at the Department 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 chief Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and is a senior defense official and defense adese in be Beijing Professor Timothy Snider is the Richard C Levan 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 awarde in Humanities and literature awarde from the American Academy of Arts and letters he is a mar martial scholar and holds a doctor of philosophy in modern history pursuant to committee rule 9g the witnesses will please stand and raise the 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 who help you God 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 r up I now recognize Colonel mam for his opening statement chair comr ranking member Rasin 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 US Mainland was the War of 1812 the non-continental US is vulnerable as Pearl Harbor showed but we've 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 is just one we refuse to recognize we are deeply penetrated Dying by the tens of thousands and there's barely a response for example chemical warfare fenel killed over 70,000 Americans in 2021 alone that's more than d 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 in 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 US is letting it happen the CCP is hitting us in many other ways Chinese economic Warfare is destroying our manufacturing and Commercial sectors we've lost millions of jobs hundreds of billions a year in revenue and entire sectors including sectors critical for our defense steel semiconductor batteries and ship building whole regions have been devastated meanwhile we became dependent on the PRC for everything from farmaceutical 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 personel and management alone gave them files of 22 million Americans holding security clearances for the first time in our history our district our distance doesn't protect us that's 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 if you ever said for example China is just behaving this way because of a century of humiliation you've been influenced by CCP scops 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're its Choice parting CCP talking points downplay or excuse threats posed by the PRC and justify inaction we've 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 and my recommendations the US 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 permanent repeal China's permanent normal trade relations status delist Chinese companies on us exchanges if they don't 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 and including imposing real reporting requirements for individuals and ENT 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 Chinese people of all people of Chinese descent in the US 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're facing and tell how the average citizen can contribute to this effort so what's at stake if we don't do this and more well America as an independent nation now in the past our enemies couldn't get into the Heartland thanks to our detached and distant situation now they're here thank you very much sir thank you and now recognize Mr Mattis for his opening statement thank you chairman comr and ra King Rasin as well as all of the other distinguished members who are here because I think the opportunity to disc this challenge is one that rarely comes about in this kind of form and to see that this is a A continuing effort hopefully I'm I'm very happy to see this from my especially after my last five 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's it's telling that both the LA the current Administration and the last one had a coherent statement about the challenge that that the PRC was going to change had the intent and the capacity to change the international order and to challenge the US position in it the CCP has consistently stated its goals that it is trying to to achieve a kind of comprehensive modernity that it is trying to unify those areas that it that it claims as its own such as Hong Kong maau Taiwan and as we've seen in those areas as well as East turkistan and Tibet and Inter Mongolia Olia that that it's not enough to have political control but there is an economic social and cultural element to this unific unification as well the challenge comes from the ccp's political Warfare against the United States and 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 workor is a key part of this effort and as you said Mr chairman united front workor is a way of monitoring mobilizing and otherwise controlling groups and individual outside the party as ma put it how do we mobilize our friends to strike at our to isolate and strike at our enemies it is also a large policy system that's much bigger than the united front workor Department it includes members from the poit bureau 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 conference that a 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 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 Krishna murthy's committee has done an incredible job of explaining just how that technology and talent is there it requires access to foreign Capital requires access to to legitimacy through business as usual and through being a normal member of international organizations united front and related efforts are are affecting all of those things the community groups that are that are put together to are 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 in foreign Banks and investment firms and when you when you take a reasonable position to say well wait a minute if the PRC is such a 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 number one the UN 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 Shin Jong at the highest of the Crackdown and if the World Bank is funding you know what we're essentially concentration camps in what is our in 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 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 can't run faster as some would like to say unless we protect we protect ourselves it doesn't matter how well you run how much you train if someone's trying to crack your kneecap and you can't run then you're 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 and over capacity being being shipped to our Shores finally enforcement will not be 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 can't focus across the board at all countries all the time thank you chair now recognizes General Spalding for his opening statement chairman comr ranking member Rasin 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 um Tong G University as an Olstead 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 very positive experience and when I came home in 2004 uh I told my wife I want to live and work in China when I retire and uh and that was my experience leaving Beijing and or Shanghai in 2004 some 14 years later I returned with my uh with the knowledge that my prior understanding of China was flawed because earlier I had not fully understand OD the nature of the Chinese Communist party today we're 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 ins institutions those of its allies in 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 clitz 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 mich's genocide of the coost of ours we use b2s to take out key strategic targets of the Serbian Elite thus convincing them to surrender mosovich to authorities mosovich eventually stood trial in the heg 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 maong whose Legacy is carried by chairman xiin ping 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 organ 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 District apps like temu Harvest user data data while other technology platforms like Tik clock influence our thoughts and behaviors by sewing distrust of 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 a aftermath of World War I 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 tyy 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 thank you chair now recognizes Professor Schnider thank you very much Mr comr um I appreciate your recognition of me as a historian um I do not have the Nimble ability that members and staffers do to LEAP from topic to topic I'm pleased I won't be asked to speak about apply iences today our subject is disinformation um it's 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've known about for decades I wrote a book about Soviet Counter Intelligence and active measures about the institutions which the Chinese Communist Party modeled I wrote another book about Russian Counter Intelligence and active measures in the 2010s 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 comr himself said our own role in it political Warfare only works in so far as it works through us the event in the world World context about which we have to be aware speaking as we are in April of 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 this 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 structure rures 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 this 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 or Nazis a Russian theme picked up by China echoed on the house floor second it's 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 into Senate by Senator Vance four that that that democracies can't do anything about Ukraine that it's all pointless a Russian theme echoed by Chinese propaganda picked up and 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 in both Chambers sixth uh the Biden bribe a Russian theme picked up and echoed by China discussed in this very chamber these are all Chinese attempts all Chinese attempts to do exactly what colleagues of 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 comr has quite rightly argued political Warfare only works when it works in an overall structure and it only works when it gets us to do things which are not in our own interests thank you very much chair now recognizes for the questioning segment of our hearing Miss mlan from Michigan for five minutes thank you Mr chairman um I want to get back to the base of the hearing I just want to make sure I'm in the right hearing um which is defending America from the Chinese Communist political uh parties political Warfare correct mind that right here okay great thanks okay I want to focus on China specifically as it pertains to EVs and the economic threat okay 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'm 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 okay or another option is we could let the Chinese battery companies be built in States like ours which doesn't really help us National Security wise if someone wants to buy EV hey that's great that's their option they can have that choice but you can't force EVS on consumers when the demand doesn't exist our electric grid can't 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's a 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's abundantly clear to most Americans that if us energy and automotic Automotive sectors rely on China for goods the United States will have no leverage in negotiations with China China will dictate to us I don't want to be in that position let me remind everyone China is not our friend Colonel Nim can you tell this committee how the Biden Administration has a allowed ourselves to be become solely dependent on China when it comes to renewable energies especially as as it pertains to the batteries 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 uh this has been sort of going on from previous administrations as well um but what they are and what they are seeing of course with EVs and particularly an Administration which may be moving too fast uh 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 uh control good chunks of the supply chain the sort of the pr precursor minerals and materials that you need to make in a nutshell being dependent on China does that help us oh it's going to kill us the Chinese love it all right you and I great the International Energy agency has stated that China produces approximately get this 75% 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 force the US automotive industry towards electric vehicles I I love this concept that the government knows better than the American people what to drive what kind of stove I mean I I actually believe in the in the American people but the Biden Administration they want to force us and mandate us I don't 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 an American industry which is the backbone of capitalism even more reliant on China yes wonderful wonderful you and I agree again what what's concerning to me is the Draconian mandate coming from this Biden Administration is just plain dumb I I mean I still can't 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're giving them a manufacturing gift that would be devastating to us American America is a nation where consumer Choice must remain free and I can't understand why our government is plating to China wait maybe I can think of about 8 million reasons why and with that I yield back chair now recognize is Miss Norton from Washington DC thank you Mr chairman uh I have heard reports of threats and attacks against uh sh sh Shan young uh Performing Arts in the United States by uh China on the basis of their practice of fulong gong theaters received emails threatening mass shooting and bombings if they refuse to cancel shanong uh uh Xian xang performances xany has reported multiple instances where the tires of their tour buses have been slash Mr Mattis what could the United States be doing to protect this group I think we actively have to be invest inating those as as crimes we go please we have to actively be investigating those as crimes and they have to be a priority for investigative resources not simply for local police departments but also for federal law enforcement and second when we see those actions that are I mean they are frankly Crimes by 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 pr C rather than a shoulder shrug or something that we could quietly say that we talked about later Professor Snider uh 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 sewing chaos through this information I would like to focus on another way in which foreign adversaries can Target their their uh uh adversaries by making money talk uh Dr Snider do authoritarian regimes sometimes use money to buy influence uh I want to thank the member for for bringing our attention to what is of course one of the absolute fundaments of intelligence practice and recruitment um 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's all very true but a very classic vulnerability was is and will always remain Financial vulnerabilities and so the need or the real Perce the real or perceived need of for example a politician the fact that a politician has made it known that that politician needs money um is a classic vulnerability which intelligence operatives from from any major state would pursue so the fact that let's say a president would make money while being president um from Chinese businesses would be a single signal a classic signal of vulnerability yes the Constitution's framers were certainly concerned about foreign powers using bribes and payments to undermine the American Democratic experiment that is why they included the con in the Constitution the foreign uh imalent clause which prohibits all federal office holders including the president from accepting any payment of and here and I quote I'm quoting any kind uh whatsoever from any King Prince or foreign State close quote uh without seeking a approval Professor Snider could you explain why prohibiting the president from taking gifts from foreign leaders is an important safeguard for our democracy I I thank the member for that reminder it once again you know it it shows us how history can be useful in in the late 18th century the American Founders were were also aware not only of the possibility of financial but also psychological manipulation of our of our leaders it speaks to a very fundamental issue issue there are complex ways of manipulating leaders in another country we've we've talked about some of those um 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 uh earlier this year the committee's Democratic staff released a report uh detailing how some of the most authoritarian uh 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 monuments Clause these countries sought and in many cases received favorable treatment from the Trump Administration more than $5.5 million dollar came from the People's Republic China and state-owned entities including Millions from uh the major Chinese Bank during this time despite evidence that the ICBC that Chinese bank and other Chinese Banks were working with North Korean uh front companies and pleas from House Republicans to sanction these M Banks Donald Trump and his administration refused to to take any option the figures seem the figures we have on Donald Trump's receipt of money from G ladies times expired but if you want to answer where she's coming from it's about Trump who were you addressing the question to the professor this yeah okay she went a minute and 15 over but okay I'd be very surprised if any any colleagues would disagree with the proposition that it's extremely dangerous for a head of state we don't 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 as a as as an instrument manipulation thank you CH chair now recognize is Mr Palmer from Alabama for five minutes thank you Mr chairman uh Mr Nim um what are the Thousand talents program and other similar programs rebranded under different names sir I'll address the the Thousand Talent SK program um basically the Chinese Communist Party looks overseas for people who have technology information that it wants particularly technology that it can use to build up its own economy it's military and it gets them on the payroll and they do it everywhere and there's obviously a well-known case of a Harvard Professor who got uh signed up for it made a lot of money he got caught got punished but he was just the the tip of the iceberg so despite the name which would indicate that you know they're trying to promote the development of intellectual capabilities among people uh that type of thing what it really is is a um spy buying program that's really all it is they're buying technology as I said that is going to be used to dominate us or kill Americans if a fight comes right and uh and how are these programs linked to the Chinese Communist Party well they're run directly by the Chinese Communist party this is not an independent uh operation going it is Chinese government can you repeat the goal of these type programs the goal repeat uh you're you commented on the goal of these programs can you repeat that with emphasis because the American people and and my colleagues need to understand what's at stake here it very much is to build up Chinese the Chinese economy and there's no distinction between the Chinese commun uh 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's even necessary so what can federal agencies do to protect American data technology intellectual property from the Chinese Communist Party from stealing it well you're going to have to first admit you've got a problem we spent decades thinking that this was all innocuous it was harmless uh Chinese were just like us uh one thing you can do is to stop uh letting Chinese researchers into American Laboratories we had huge problems at Los Alamos for example um you look at every seems like every University laboratory that comes up with some new discovery there's always Chinese researchers in there you do not want to do anything that is going to help the country that is trying to to kill you and that is one thing you do don't let these people in and there's obviously the basic infrastructure sort of uh protections you need but we have just opened the doors and unfortunately let in people who who wish us ill and I just would say read the Chinese press for a week if you want to get some idea what they think of us not technology for our power grid our our military I mean we're very dependent on China supply chain for key components uh that our military has to have that if and I I keep trying to warn people about this and and we've got colleagues in in in Congress who refuse to allow mining refuse to allow the development of processing and refiner 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 we brag about funding uh manufacturing plants to make semiconductors and and microchips and we don't make anything we assemble them from parts we get from China so and it's not just that uh could you come in on us allowing China to buy farmland and and the agricultural research theft that is taking place yes sir an important point of that is actually it's goes beyond just growing crops and shipping them off to China but rather seed technology it's a key Advantage for us companies for the United States and it can also be used as offensive platforms as well don't be surprised at some point in the future our Farmers have a put seeds in the ground and they're sterile uh there's more to it as I said than just them wanting to the Chinese wanting to guarantee their uh food imports Mr chairman I'd like to make a comment about where we're heading with this hearing and 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's 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've 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 y'll back very good chair now recognize Mr Chris morte from Illinois thank you Mr chair as the ranking member of this select committee on the strategic competition with the CCP I'd 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's why we should never engage in any anti-chinese or anti-asian stereotyping or Prejudice and I think Mr comr you started off with that se 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 uh competition General Spalding while we don't 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 quote there are three major parties in American politics there's 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'd 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 sew doubt about us leadership right thank you Congressman absolutely and and in doing so they also can discredit democracy in favor of dictatorships right that's part of the campaign and divide us with regard to our approach to countering CCP military aggression correct it's more about getting us to not counter their political aggression although military aggression will come into play at some point I agree that partisanship is is really unproductive when we are up against this very serious threat of the CCP and I hope that we can uh 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're familiar with the B PRC biotech company called wooi aptech correct that's correct they're 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 High highlighted biotech's importance to the ccp's National goals and you agree that the wooi aptech company is critical to CCP achieving those biotech National goals right that's correct here's the thing published Reports say that wooi is transferring us intellectual property to Beijing without consent so in order to get ahead woi aptech is stealing American intellectual property correct I believe that's correct although we haven't proven it in the court of law yet well I've introduced the bioc secure act on a bipartisan basis which prevents Federal taxpayer dollars from flowing to biotech companies of concern including wooi aptech wooi has been uh lobbying against that bill furiously on Capitol Hill claiming that quote they have no relationship with the CCP and somehow they are a private company but Mr Mattis these are falsehoods right that's correct because even if a company is ostensibly private inside the PRC if it's hosting a party committee if it's intimately connected with national strategies like the military civil Fusion development strategy you were 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 comr I know you care about this issue and I hope we can collectively pass the bipartisan bioc secure Bill sooner rather than later to address this very real threat with regard to biotech I'll 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 number one 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 Nim you'd agree that the CCP is closely watching our support for Ukraine to inform its own approach to Taiwan right yes they're watching it closely they're also um watching it regardless of what we do it's the outcome of Putin's invasion of Ukraine they're watching that very closely and they're learning their lessons you can't be strong on Taiwan and weak on Ukraine and so I hope that this week more than any any other week we remember that and we pass Aid to Ukraine now thank you so much and I yield back chair now recognizing is Mr gofman from Wisconsin um just to respond a little different view of Ukraine I voted for Ukraine six times but right now we have a situation in which the refusal to close the border uh forces members of the Republican party to try to leverage something that should be automatic anyway uh in any event in an effort to attain narrative dominance and Advance the CP and this is for General Spalding uh in an effort to attain narrative dominance and Advance the C cp's destructive Ambitions the CCP carefully crafts the global narrative surrounding itself and the 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 well the narrative is that they cloak everything behind the PRC in actuality in within China there's two um two constitutions there's a Chinese Communist party and then there's a PRC Constitution the Chinese Communist Party Constitution says that there the Chinese Communist Party actually is a sovereign and I think that's the challenge of our uh executive branch is identifying Who The Sovereign is and identifying the type of system that they represent and what's their goal their goal is to maintain power in China and to restore the dominance of China as a nation in the world can you give me examples of uh what they've done to to shape the global narrative between uh PRC and CCP well the most effective thing they've done is to develop this very powerful technology um that fuels the the uh information influence campaigns that come out of Tik Tok so they've C they've actually adopted silic and Valley's tactics techniques and procedures of influence for commercial gain and move that into social and political gain so they're actually able to use that platform to influence 180 million Americans towards a Chinese Centric worldview okay um I know there are American private businesses um owned by some of the wealthiest people in the country uh I think of the NBA I think of uh Hollywood can you say can you give us examples of how they weigh in with these money hungry billionaires to maybe four toward the the Chinese Communist agenda well a good example is just the the the issue of Tik Tok Tik Tock uh has American investors American investors that have a an interest in that maintaining uh a a connection to the Chinese Communist party because that's what Tik Tock wants and therefore they Lobby the Congress to make sure that there's no bill passed with regard to uh defunding of Tik Tock okay somebody just telling me the other day there's a big movie out of China right now in the last couple years uh the narrative being that America started the Korean War could you could you maybe elaborate on that or any one of for you well there's it's not just now it's been going on there's actually a great museum in dandong China that you can go to that talks about um the uh aggressiveness of America and how you know China was was helping the the great Korean people so um it's it's been going on for a long time okay how does the CCP use social media to change how young people think you give us a specific example of something the young people are breathing in that's not true uh Tik tok's a great example about 30% of young people now get their news from Tik Tock and um there's U Been evidence shown of messages Chinese Communist Party messages embedded in Tik Tok different venues different times different people to to um essentially influence different groups towards a China Centric worldview can you just give us an example yeah so um I think one of them is that you know China does not is not a hegemonic country so why does the United States seek to um cast China as a hegemonic country as one example of a message that they would put in and what's the narrative as they try to tear down America can you give me example there well essentially that democracy is chaotic that Washington DC can't 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 okay that and they have other negative do do they cause American young people to have a negative view of America could you give us examples of that perfect example is when secretary blinkin met with his counterparts in Alaska and they classified America as a systemically racist country racist that that's what uh that's what the representative from China said I I I can believe that I mean you got a country with people from the whole world is trying to get in there and people are saying we're racist you have to be a okay thanks chair now recognize Mr Conor from California thank you m Mr chair uh Professor Snider 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 Levan would be proud of uh you having his uh 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 consider the Security Supplemental these issues all have become interl 56 members of Congress including speaker Pelosi and myself wrote a letter to President Biden and secretary blinkin asking them to stop any offensive weapons transferred to Israel do you agree with speaker Pelosi myself and 56 members especially given what you've written about Netanyahu that this is not the time to provide offensive weapons I think that it's a mistake to believe that there's 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 I appreciate that a lot of my Democratic colleagues listen to you religiously so I'm hoping they'll listen to you about this one of the things some of us who've signed that letter uh have said is have a clean vote on Ukraine I support it most people support it I think you'd get a total Democratic caucus supporting it and when it comes to the Israel Aid many of us would support uh the defensive Aid some may not but many would support Iron Dome and others we just don't want the offensive weapons linked in that package do you agree that it makes sense to have separate votes on Ukraine Taiwan Israel you're you're I'm going to refer to uh to to Mr Comer's um you know definition of the limits of my expertise these are political matters on which you will have better judgment than I you have you have good judgment I mean what would you recommend I would I I believe that it was politically understandable but strategically erroneous from the beginning to link the Israel Gaza conflict with the Russia Ukraine war they're 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 so while um while I I believe that Israel had to be supported after October 7th 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 the 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 they're 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 I really appreciate you're saying that because there are many of us the minority in the Democratic caucus but have' been making your point point that let's 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 want don't want to just give a cart blanch to Netanyahu which I think you have uh articulated here uh I'm hopeful our leadership uh will listen to you uh I'm hopeful speaker Johnson will listen to you uh and I think uh as much as those who praised your opening statement praise that they should listen to your advice on this issue I'll give you the last word well if then if I could if I could if I could have the last word the the point that I made earlier about the linkage between chines 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're serious about resisting Chinese political Warfare passing aid for Ukraine this week would be a sign of that seriousness thank you will the gentleman yield for a question time's expired chair now recognizing Mr cloud from Texas thank you chairman thank you Witnesses for being here I do want to thank you chairman for hosting this committee there couldn not be a a more important topic facing our country right now um Sun Su once said he said is if one party is at war with another and the other party does not realize it's at War the party who knows it's at War almost always has the advantage and usually wins uh and right now we find ourselves a place in in our country where we have not acknowledged that China is in an unrestricted Warfare against our country and we know 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 uh on things cultural Warfare international law Warfare infrastructure terrorism chemical warfare biological warfare a number of these things we've seen already at works or the beginning of them taking a foothold within our borders and the whole idea of unrestricted Warfare course is to take out our country without firing a shot um I found it very concerning of course last week when I was in a Committee hearing with uh secretary my orcus our homeland security secretary that it was a term that he seemed puzzled by uh when I brought up unrestricted Warfare uh and the need for us to do things like secure our borders to protect against it when I go through this list I you know you can just a number of these smuggling drug faar chemical warfare economic aid Warfare all affecting uh or involved in what's going on on our Southern border not to mention all the terror potential terrorists that have come into our country uh we know uh a number of of single adult Chinese males are coming in and you don't usually leave China without uh their permission uh and so we have tens of thousands that have come in and so we we've got to really be careful about what's going on but I was struck Colonel Nim about something you said because you said the largest you you mentioned the largest wealth transfer in history and it reminded me of a 2008 US National Intelligence Council report where that said this it said it predicted this said the unprecedented shift in relative wealth and economic power roughly from the west to east is now underway and will continue uh that report went on to say the United States relative strength even in the military realm will Decline and US leverage will come become more constrained uh it went on to explain why it said in terms of size speed and directional flow the transfer of global wealth and E economic Powers now underway roughly from West E without precedent in modern history so this is like never happening before it said it derives itself from two sources one we're sending oil and gas revenues overseas and we're sending manufacturing overseas um and so I'm very concerned about the policies and especially this Administration has has embraced that continue to do these things now this is been happening over decades but certainly we've seen kind of The Petal been put on the gas uh or the the foot been put on the gas P when it comes to this could you speak to what's happening in this transfer of wealth and political influence and dynamic going from east to west yes sir it's um as you noted correctly it's 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 90s into the 2000s so it's g a long time but it's still going on and there seems to be some sign that some Industries and businessmen are waking up to the the danger of putting your money into a system like that plus the fact that they are out to kill us putting it simply uh and I say it really hasn't stopped energy is one particular area where it is baffling that we are giving up that Advantage um and the Chinese are taking advantage of it other enemies are as well but also mentioned earlier was the the so-call green technologies that well China stole the Technologies for those they started manufacturing them in China and with illegal subsidies Etc can now dump them onto the world State onto the world markets like the US and now even better they have us solar companies lobbying Congress not to crack down on Chinese illegal trade activities and stolen technology because they're getting cheap stuff from China it's a win-win from China's perspective but it hasn't stopped there's some signs we're waking up but it's unfortunately we're not near where we need to be now one of the things you he trying to talk about they're very out there along with Russia and Iran and other countries about working to create a multi-polar world in other words to bring the United States down from our super power influence uh in 2018 I think it was July 22nd Biden said in a speech as vice president he said we are trying to create a multi-polar world uh and so it concerns me that we have somebody in the white house right now who doesn't share the objective that most of us have of a strong uh us presence uh that remains a city on the hill for the for the world uh and then we have somebody in the White House who's who has these objectives at at play um I wanted to see if you could speak to to one other thing Al Alexander soulon said to destroy a 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 our Founders uh and sometimes just frankly ignore our our US history when for the imperfect country we are every country is uh we've been a tremendous positive influence in the world could you speak to what you've seen happening in our universities well it's not um acceptable thought to consider America a good decent Nation uh and that's unfortunately how it's how it's turned out and that is you can imagine what the damage are is there um the idea that we've seen in things like the 1619 project that America America is fundamentally evil well that 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 chair now chair now recognize missio Cortez from New York for five minutes thank you so much uh Mr thank you so much chairman I I appreciate it and thank you uh to all of our Witnesses for sharing your expertise today uh Dr Snyder your opening was um 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 uh both domestically in the United States but also globally um I I wanted to touch a little bit briefly on and pick up a little bit uh very briefly uh on your exchange uh with representative cona here in the what you assessed as a mistake in tying Ukraine to the conflict in Gaza um and also presently as you mentioned the necessity of passing Aid to Ukraine as quickly as possible could you speak a little bit uh expand a little bit more on um on where you see that entanglement or detriment in tying the conflict in Ukraine with uh with with what is H with what is happening in Gaza and with u the netanyahu's uh government's decisions to to advance in Gaza and how the US relates to both of those things differently happy to do my best with with respect to the the general premise I just want to emphasize the general premise of your question these things are all connected if you're a Chinese political Warrior and you're concerned with public opinion laww and psychology you're not going to respect the safe spaces of the country that you're trying to weaken so we might say I don't want to talk about Ukraine and Chinese political Warfare at the same time but there are no Chinese political Warriors who are doing that correct we might say we don't want to talk about Trump because that's too sensitive but you can precisely not expect Chinese political Warriors to respect your safe spaces it's precise precisely your safe spaces your tender spots that they're going to go after and this is not just a speculation by me it's 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'll be as specific as I can as I read it um as I read it in late 2023 in a in a different political context than the one we're in now and in a different stage of the war in than one we're 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 the 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 milit response is going to lead to a political solution and secondly the extreme difficulty in getting Ukraine Aid to pass in any form those two things change the overall political situation for for me I'm who's not in legislature and not an executive branch the 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 the conflict in Gaza is a horrifying terrorist operation which must lead to some kind of political solution it won't be solved militarily that's my assessment thank you so much Dr Snider and I think what you laid out us so clearly there and and in your opening as well is that the core and the key that we have here is in support geopolitically inst stability is in supporting is in supporting Ukraine in this moment having military US 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 uh there all of the focus here is in Ukraine and in support Ing and ensuring that Putin and an authoritarian regime in Russia does not Prevail in changing the geopolitical order rule of law and uh and functioning democracy worldwide and frankly I think it's important from 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 over all contributing to the volatility of our situation do you would you say that that's a fair assessment all 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 doesn't have to be the population is threatened in ways it doesn't 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've given and we ought to do so as quickly as possible thank you thank you Dr Snider chair now recognize Mr Higgins from Louisiana thank you Mr chairman my my Democrat colleagues and and some of my Republican colleagues we're focused on using this area to to promote sending uh billions more American treasur to Ukraine and I've been to Ukraine I support the Ukrainian people's right to defend themselves but I work for the American citizenry as as do 434 colleagues up here and 100 Senators allegedly and meanwhile our own borders dissolved gentlemen in China we're talking about today that's the purpose of this hearing to discuss Chinese threat the CCP is is is deeply embedded in partnership with the cartels that are trafficking drugs and human beings into our country to the to the horrific impact of American communities from sea to shine and sea so I'm going to discuss that for a minute and I'm going to ask colonel Nim to comment on this relationship between the the Chinese partnership with the cartels and the development and production of chemicals that produced fentol fentol you're talking about couple of hundred thousand Americans dead in the last three years from pentanal poisoning it's called a point on the street just a little little point on the end of an ink pen that's why they call it a point by the way is a dosage is so powerful is is deadly in in a way that Americans are that are ingesting this drugs that that they don't anticipate that they're ingesting fent andol they're being poisoned by that and dying and that's this coming from China through our Southern border through partnered with the cartels under this Administration a wide openen border and today today today right now A across the campus in the Senate they're in the process of rejecting a legitimate accountability the impeachment of secretary mayorcas and they going to make noise about sending money to Ukraine how about let's take up care of America how about let's let's hold let's hold this Administration accountable for the disintegration of our Southern border Colonel n would you consider the production of chemicals that produce Fant on by the CCP to be a form of warfare oh it's definitely an act of War Sir they know exactly what's going on they're allowing it to happen we have casualties in that war do we not sir couple hundred thousand Americans dead because of that war it's actually a lot more than that if you count I'm a republican sir I'm being conservative you're about three times conservative Roger that the CCP continues to take advantage of the policies of this Administration and and secretary mayorcas we're attempting to hold accountable and who's stopping this from holding that man accountable he's been impeached by the people's house why will he potentially and probably not be removed from office who's stopping that Democrats what they making noise about today sending money to Ukraine instead of dealing with the Chinese threat where you have 200,000 American dead pay Attention America this is your house and this is a very real threat that we face right now we're dealing with political crap instead of forcing accountability the CCP is partnered with the cartels Colonel Nim that's my perspective am I correct there yes sir continued production of fentol and it's import to 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 that are that are allowing millions and millions 12 million illegals now in three years unold thousands and thousands hundreds of thousands of pounds likely of pentanol inter country does it not embolden the Chinese to continue that policy uh yes sir it does and I would note to from a military perspective if you're guarding your front and you're not paying attention to the rear and the enem is pouring in well you're going to lose thank you to all the panelists for being here today thank you Mr chairman for convening this hearing I yield gentleman yields back chair now recognize Miss Brown from Ohio 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 Wagers directly mirrors what Iran is is 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 linski but don't 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 election Toral 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 Affairs foreign efforts to misuse our adversaries latest tool artificial intelligence in our election and I am working on legislation to prevent AI issues as a way to intimidate voters so Dr Schneider can you explain how Russia and the CCP are capitalizing on each other's propaganda efforts to spread disinformation in this year's election and what Congress can do to combat these efforts first of all I want to thank you representative for using the word lie which is very important if if we 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 um 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 to Americans as far as Russia and China and these coming elections uh and in a general way one can say that there are Chinese institutions that are modeled on Russian institutions if you follow what um 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's all state rather than being quazi private it's its themes and its tropes are much less skillful but the basic idea is the same um to 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 um that's what its actors are doing at the moment so there's there's that relationship the the overall aim of course is to get us into a situation where we don't believe in ourselves and we don't believe in our system and I believe colleagues would agree that that negation is is is the basic aim in an electoral year or any other time thank you and Dr Snyder how has the twice and Peach four 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 I'm very concerned by the way and again this goes to the point about safe spaces it's 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're 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 6th 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 in its internet messaging in the Years 2023 and 2024 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 El 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 in 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 chair now recognizing Miss mace from South Carolina um thank you Mr chairman on this hearing about communist China the threats to our nation as you know Mr chairman uh I think almost all Republicans in the House of Representatives are actually banned from Russia I've heard a lot of Russian disinformation misinformation today and I would argue that democracy is not throwing your number one political opponent off the ballot in States so that you can um you know threaten democracy um 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 keyword most of us know better whether it be through deadly Chinese fent andol smuggled across our Southern border cyber warfare or stealing of American data intellectual property Trade Secrets Etc the Biden Administration has failed to protect Americans not only at our wide open Southern border but also our interests from the Communist Threat all while funding Jihad terrorism around the world that's what this Administration does so um last month a former employee at one of the largest American technology companies who was a Chinese spy was indicted and charged with four 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 CC backed operatives in America stealing emerging Technologies from American companies they do and they also seek to gather as much data as they can about the United States in order to to become in their ter term an AI superpower uh Vault typhoon has been recognized by the cyber security and infrastructure Security Agency siza as a CCP hacker group that could disrupt critical Communications and infrastructure especially during times uh and a in future crises The Vault typhoon CCP hackers were able to plant themselves inside US Government systems granting the CP CP the ability to disrupt and destruct cyber activity including in critical infrastructure at any given point in time does a CCP have the ability to hack into our government systems using its hacking operations like volt typhoon and others absolutely and there's even more even more how does the CCP manage to hack into uh these systems how do they do it 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 they're doing it all day every day aren't they every day um if the US government buys and uses equipment manufactured in China could the CCP potentially access information on that equipment absolutely and that's one of the reasons why we push to get Huawei out of telecommunications networks around the Free World what is the most vulnerable equipment like that the government could purchase well I mean obviously routers but um in for our electric grid those large power Transformers that for the most part come from China are one of the biggest ones because they take years to build okay and then what are the dangers of CCP cyber warfare for just everyday Americans and then also critical infrastructure it's really about taking your data your data that you um that comes from you being on these platforms whether it be Tik Tok or Facebook or any of the others and then learning how to influence you to you know not be a fan of our Republic and to embrace a more uh ath authoritarian system I mean that's essentially what they're trying to do and they've been very successful at it 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 I would agree with that and I think that's part of the process for some reason we find ourselves in a in a in a global system 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 and we've 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 chair now recognize is Miss stb from New Mexico 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'm 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 sign 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 don't support our allies in Europe and then 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 it's currently configured as a member of the indopacific 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 chines chines 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 Krishna Morty 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 under mining 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 US media and milu to undermine our action against our adversaries in fact the chairman 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 US military support to our allies he said it had infected his party it was being repeated on the floor of the house we've seen examples of this in fact in both Chambers we have members of both Chambers MERS 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 root out threats to American democracy to Global Security we have to wake up now Dr Snider you're a historian I'm grateful that you're here please help us understand the significance of this moment I'm 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 B I already told you number one and most narrowly it's impossible to disentangle Chinese and Russian propaganda when Chinese channels transmit Russian memes number two slightly more broadly um 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's what political Warfare is precisely and then number three UK the direct connection between Ukraine and China which everyone in Taiwan understands and repeats is that in so far as they resist successfully the ukrainians are deterring Chinese offensive operations in the Pacific and they're 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 don't 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 thank you and Mr chairman I just want to say history is watching this I agree chair now recognize Mr Burleson from Missouri Mr chairman um abil Haynes the Director of National Intelligence um had a statement recently it said the CCP presents both the leading and most consequential threat to US 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 I was shocked um this question for you Mr Mattis I was shocked to hear about a program um that the CCP uses uh with the united front to Target and control Chinese Americans and the the Chinese dispora in the United States um what is their goal the goal the goal in representing those Comm or having control over those kinds of community organiz ations 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 can't possibly meet with every single constituent and solicit their opinion and have engage in a conversation you have to deal with groups it of all kinds right whether they are through unions for through voluntary associations and therefore you can have an organization of entirely patriotic Americans with One Bad Apple in a leadership position who by virtue of that position can now Mis is the voice for the for that group and the other thing is that when those 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's a message from the CCP to the Chinese people that not only are we in control here but we're control you there there and you will not seek get rescue from them and that being said since 2014 the CCP has overseen um an extra legal operation of for repatriation called operation Fox Hunt um they use operation Fox Hunt to harass and stalk Chinese Americans and the Chinese dispora could you describe this campaign and um would you consider it political Warfare I'm not sure if I would consider it political Warfare but I would consider it a violation of us sovereignty by a foreign power right they're 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 anti-corruption and indeed some of it may be a corrupt official but as we've seen from shim Ping's campaign internally some of the people that are targeted are very clearly targeted for their political reasons and Corruption is simply an excuse yeah the so what are the methods or tactics that they're using I know i' I've heard that they have uh organized policing groups that are located in the United States yes and those groups have have been used to hire sort of private investigators to sort of pursue and look um in some cases where there are direct confrontations with with the victim to be repatriated back to the PRC they are showing say pictures of family members or calling family members in the in Beijing or in the PRC to demonstrate that look if you're not on a plane back then this will be the last so they're threatening their the family members that are still in China yes and saying if you don't repatriate back or you know come to heal if you're not back in the PRC in x amount of time then you know this will be the end for um just this year one of the operation Fox Hound's top official met with the um deputy secretary adviser John fer and Secretary of State Anthony blinken could you explain how this might represent Elite capture look I don't think that something like that kind of meeting would represent Elite capture if you are trying to get particular messages into the system if you were trying to tell the PRC what is acceptable or not you're going to have to deal with those security authorities and you're going to have to to press the message there but you think that there is a for for us officials who are meeting with CCP officials um that are in charge of these repatriation efforts obviously they're seeking out these meetings again if you were 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's simply that's simply the nature of dealing with those with those governments thank you thank you Mr chairman CH chair now recognizes Mr Asin uh thank you Mr chairman um Professor Schneider what role does political and financial corruption play in the authoritarian regimes like China and Russia it 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's also used as a way to discredit the entire system and internally those regimes are based on corruption 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 don't now we have Rivals and this pertains both to China and Russia whose main message is that our system isn't what it seems to be there are really no alternatives to just autocratic regimes where only money and power count one of our colleagues chided our side of the Iowa for raising Donald Trump's name I think that was presumably directed at representative Norton who discussed the millions of dollars that Donald Trump uh pocketed in unlawful foreign government and monuments from the Chinese government and from the state-owned ICBC Bank while he was president is corre corruption in America irrelevant to our ability to withstand foreign propaganda by authoritarian regimes like China and Russia of course it's not irrelevant it's 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 a message becomes a bit more plausible anyone who is serious about political Warfare would be very attentive to these underlying Financial issues of course um one of our colleagues uh mentioned an effort that is underway um to stop Fe US 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's Chinese propaganda uh on your website there's Russian propaganda on your website what 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 uh on their vehicles colleagues in different ways have already raised the point that it's that that Tik Tok is not the only problem the problem is the way the social media is designed as such democracies tend to work better when institutions are set up up in such a way that factuality has an advantage over propaganda unfortunately social media is set up in a different way it gives an advantage a financial advantage for advertisers to attention seeking and therefore to shocking propaganda we know that this can be mediated because when it has been when attempts have been made either by corporations themselves in cooperation or by the government we have been able to dramatically reduced to 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 ex salance an example of psychological warfare and it would be foolish if the United States government did not allow itself to draw attention to it I wonder if you can help us figure out where we've come as a committee Professor Schneider about a year ago our GOP colleagues began heralding an FBI form FD 1023 that recorded allegations that President Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine uh and tried to promote these as credible allegations um it turned out that these were lies and the person who was promoting them has been pro has been indicted for lying to the FBI and constructing a false record it turns out that uh he was uh 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 um chairman Jason Smith for example said this was a Smoking Gun and it was the definitive proof that that the bidens took bribes um it's obviously been dropped and yet this was the Genesis of our investigation um how do we that's just simply not true but go ahead I'll y to the chairman if you no no well you can use your you seing the bank statements or Russian disinformation that the bidens took $9,000 from China you've been talking about bank statements for more than a year but they don't show anything other than there was no crime it's okay for as Tony balinsky said for China to Bri Joe Biden's family with $9 million but that's the lie that's been discredited I mean where is your impeachment investigation if Donal if Joe Biden took a $9 million bribe from China why aren't you impeaching him for that well who who says we're not well I I can I can invite Mr moscowitz 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 no this is a a hearing on China and you all have an obsession with Russia and trump it it's disturbing talk China and Trump or Russia Trump he's got you need therapy Mr Askin no no you need therapy you're the one who's involved with the deranged politician not me okay I I've divorced myself from Donald Trump a long time ago you're the one who needs to disentangle from that situation and 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 well we we know that Donald Trump had a legitimate business that he talked about and he campaigned the legitimate business was the White House so the White House what oh give me a break what business was the B 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 did they have casinos did they have office building what business did they have an inter Mr chairman we have spent tens of millions of dollars you pursuing Jo Biden and you have not identified a single you are lying that's a lie we have not spent $10 milliony how much have you spent we have we haven't spent hardly anything oh it's been for free okay all right well in any event you know what then we get what we paid for it because you got nothing you got nothing on Jo no no answer this question answer this question what did the bidens do what business were they in why did they get millions of dollars well no I I would like to ask you a question you start what did the bidens do the B I don't know what well what P what business is the comr in you're talking about lots of people there's lots of people in the Imp investigation must identify a high crime in misdemeanor what did they do I'll 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 he ever made in his life millions of dollars on his book and he gave a million that's what his family did that's what that's why Ukraine uh Kazakhstan Romania China Russia that's why they paid the Biden family money because Joe none of those governments paid anyone any money some somebody needs therapy here but it's nobody on our side of the aisle okay hearing back to the CH you had your chance I would like my time restored well no your time wased no you interrupted me I want my time your time you went above and I'll let Miss dorton go a minute you know what here sit down everybody come back this is about China we asked a simple question oh M Presley you're out of order sit down Mr chairman Mr chairman Mr chairman Mr chairman Mr B can I make a motion that we um we take a break for five minutes I we're going to keep going uh we'll let the record show that Mr raskins could not answer the question bid receive the money let me start with this my last name is Rasin okay we've sat next to each other for more than a year you don't have to add the s number two I would like my time restored and number three you have not identified a single crime well 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 you're about to find out veryme you're about to find out very soon ch propa thank thank you thank you Mr chairman thank you Mr chairman I and uh Colonel Nim Yokoso yeah yeah uh we could CH we could talk in Japanese for a few minutes but uh that that might that might take us further anyway but glad to have you here welcome everyone here I'll I'll begin uh I'm going to focus on China and start Mr M uh your question for for you first is China's has Chinese propaganda penetrated into the United States of America 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 right I'm going to get into that but I I'm talking about just just initially about propaganda that's penetrated as well right I mean the messages certainly reach um so yes okay and then I'll go to colon Colonel Nim uh my questions for you is is uh you mentioned in your in your written testimony hacking of US military technology have we covered that today not yet sir but the what I was couple examples I used were the hacking of the basically the plans for the c17 transport the F-35 fighter and the Chinese have built a couple things that look un awful lot like those and we have do we have evidence that uh how they how they were able to hack that technology acquire that technology I believe there's a pretty good understanding of that it was partly uh human access that allowed them to get the computer access but also they have computer hackers on a scale you can hardly imagine they got plenty of resources to devote to it and then and then uh this will be for you Colonel n Nim and Mr Mattis maybe this is what you wanted to get at to um in your te in your written testimony Colonel Nim you mentioned fiscal penetration or infiltration and in particular you you point to what uh I would call South China Sea uh assets that China is trying to acquire um in in relationship to actually us assets there like the Northern Mariana Islands Etc can you you want to take just a few seconds and expand on that pleas sure just um regards South China SE the Chinese had de facto control of that at least seven or eight years ago long before Ukraine ever came along uh they are now going after American territories and parts of America in see it Commonwealth of Northern Marianas and in Guam um coming through the borders in in cnmi case it's with the approval of our own Department of Homeland Security which gives Visa free access once they're in they're causing all sorts of trouble uh they've picked up Chinese around uh wandering through the jungles around us bases in Guam as well and that that gets me to something that that General Spalding wrote in his his written testimony um where you said and I'm going to quote it 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 in entire International order vulnerable to Relentless and ongoing political influence campaigns um do you want to elaborate on that uh in connection with what we've been talking about with the fisical infiltration or or the propaganda infiltration as well well one of the ways that U that that happens is uh because we relaxed cocom so cocom prevented both us and our allies from Trading with the Soviet Union and that 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 thank thank you General and I would just say before we go further um uh I did read one of your books General Spalding and actually one of Dr Snider's books on tyranny so uh uh I have some familiarity if the other two you other two have written books I haven't read those books yet I'll I'll try try to track those down as well and then I want to get back to to you Mr Mattis one of the things you were talking about you wanted to talk more more than the psychological or the the infiltration or penetrations of psychology psychology by China so so for example in technology transfer it's 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 in 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 us professional organizations and those associations um basically work with 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 WI wisdom that are beneficial to running large Labs thank you Mr Mr chairman my time has expired but I do have a couple of items I would like to submit for the record um and just say that 25 years ago when I was working on graduate work in Asian Northeast Asian security um China was a huge issue even then for very different reasons but but they were emerging uh with they had hegemonic Ambitions that that time and if you go back you'll see that had hegemonic Ambitions literally forever in China so I would I would submit a couple things for the record Mr chairman one of them is the testimony uh that was submitted to the United States senates uh before the emerging threats in spending oversight subcommittee on the committee on homeland security and governmental Affairs entitled strengthening International cooperation to stop the flow of fentel into the United States of March 20th 2024 without objection to order and another piece rather old with a um I I don't mean to the title is offensive but it was it's it was a book review of one of Mr Snider's books from September 9th 2014 called Timothy Snider's Lies by Daniel Lazar without objection so ordered you'll thank you g expired chair Rec Mr Garcia from California thank you uh 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 and I'm sure that um our chairman and my Republican colleagues will recognize uh this gentleman over here this of course is gal uh we know that a Chinese spy G infiltrated this committee's sham impeachment inquiry against President Biden with false allegations now according to his Federal indictment gal paid a former US government official who was a Donald Trump adviser to quote 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 quote a very credible witness this this is a Chinese spy we're talking about just because galof was willing to help Republicans smear the president so we're 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's completely ridiculous for Republicans to claim to get tough on China while they're working with literal Chinese agents to spread misinformation goes to show you what a joke this is now this isn't of course the only example of the majority's hypocrisy will the gentleman Yi a question I'm I'm going to keep going sir uh because we know that one of the most important tools to stop hostile foreign influence in our government is the Constitution now Professor Schnider what role does the ement Clause of the Constitution play in protecting against foreign foreign influence since it seems to be the rule here that people jump around a bit I'm just going to respond to the absent questioner actually sir I need you to respond to just to I will I will I will trust me but the 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 Snider that they have entered into the record that book review is from the point of view of someone defending the onep Party Linen state which colleagues and I believe thank you sir I just the problem yes the Iman Clause Is Fundamental example of the wisdom of the founders in recognizing the possibility of financial corruption in the head stat thank you and the amance Clause is Vally 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 evidenced that China funneled cash to Donald Trump through his businesses while he was president that is illegal and a threatens National Security the Trump International Hotel more stays at at the hotel in Vegas Trump Tower over $5.5 million 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 cut off the investigation into Trump's business activities so we only have documentation for about two 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 now 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 money to funnel money into North Korea I also want to talk about it's 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 and companies we know from China 5.5 million Saudi Arabia Qatar Kuwait all all from all of these countries there was illegal foreign payments made violating the amalian 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 his son-in-law Jared Krishner a job at the White House we know that his son put together a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudi government we know that that Jared received a $2 billion investment fund from the Saudi Government after just leaving the White House just a month after leaving the White House and so there's a lot of corruption that we can talk about and even though chairman comr wants to invite spies that are working with China doesn't want to in investigate the foreign the the the payments that the Trump was receiving from foreign governments these are things that must be talked about and investigated Professor Snider is it acceptable for a former US official to get $2 billion for from a foreign government for an investment fund right after leaving office that is totally unacceptable thank you and that's exactly what the Trump family is doing continues to do and they continue to put this huge grift on the American people Mr comr would you like to ask me a question yeah are you aware that gal L was charged by the Department of Justice for violating the foreign agents registration act because of the money he took from CFC which is the exact same company that paid the Biden's millions of dollars the same company that Tony balinsky testified that Joe Biden was the big guy in a deal with Mr uh chairman K are you aware that you called him a very credible witness yet he's a Chinese spy well then is Hunter Biden and Joe are they Chinese you called a you called gof a very credible witness who happen to he's a credible witness because he worked for the same company that Hunter and Biden and Joe Biden for the for the record chairman for the record our chairman is saying that a Chinese spy a Chinese spy working for the Chinese government against the United States of America is a very credible witness i y back credible because he got paid by the same company the Biden's got paid for the same thing the same company that gave millions of dollars to Donald Trump when he was president no it's the same company that paid the Biden millions of dollars for what business was it again Mr rid what business were were the Biden in I forgot what you can you stop saying the bidens Jim Biden h was a businessman now recognizes Mr Fallon from Texas 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're talking about threats that the Chinese Communist Party presents to the United States of America wow I don't care if you're 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's a multitude facing our country it's 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's work to either eliminate them or mitigate them to a significant degree in my humble opinion it's rather obvious what the greatest threats are one it's our deficit spending and our accumulated debt and two it's 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's a hearing on the Chinese Communist party I'm not here to talk about Joe Biden today I'm here to talk about the Chinese Communist party and it's sad when you hear these buzzwords from the ranking member and other Democrats at 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 Schneider what new territory of another nation state did Vladimir Putin violate in 2008 Georgia and who was president in 2008 President of of the Russian Federation unit States of America was Vladimir of the United States of America Obama in 2014 what new territory of another nation state did Vladimir Putin violate Ukraine Ukraine cria and Eastern Ukraine correct that is correct and who was the president then uh Obama okay in 2022 what new territory of another nation state did Vladimir Putin violate Ukraine full scale Invasion trying to grab keev correct correct and who was president then Biden Joe Biden from January of 2017 to January of 2021 what new territory of another nation state did Vladimir Putin violate uh there were no there were no military invasions there were no new territories violated by Vladimir Putin you're correct Al yes although then then the only and who was president then uh of the Russian Federation United States of America from January 2017 to January you're repeating the question it was Joe Biden no from 2017 to 2021 who was the president of the United States oh sorry Donald Trump Donald Donald J Trump so reality shows us that there was only one US president in the last uh three or four rather that could either control or contain Vladimir Putin and that was John Donald J Trump so that could be possibly An Inconvenient Truth to our friends across the aisle but nonetheless it is the truth who General um General Spalding who has a greater GDP China or Russia China China in fact it's U about almost 10 times as much and uh Colonel n who has a greater population China or Russia China China by about 10 times so who's the greater threat it's rather obvious it's China whereas president Trump would say China um General Spalding has the United States intelligence Community accurately identified the threat that the CCP presents no and I believe that's a direct result of the influence within Washington DC particularly on think tanks in what ways has the intelligence Community failed to address the CCP threat when I started um you know working with the defense intelligence agency they were primarily focused on the military threat coming from China China they weren't focused on the economic threat the financial threat the academic threat the political threat that we're talking about here so for instance in uh 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 you find that alarming terrifying 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 got into a hot war with China I think both of those situations exist but I also think that the Chinese Communist party is opportunistic and it has uh conditioned the Chinese the Chinese citizens to believe that they must do what the Chinese Communist Party asked so every Chinese citizen that comes into the country by law is a Chinese agent of the Chinese Communist party and even if 99% of them are just looking for a better life it's terrifying to know that there are 500 new potential threats in this country in an open Society well leuan who's a a journalist for the New York Times talks about the deprogramming she had 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're going to have those types of people come into the country then they have to go some 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 decade certainly since tinan Square Mr chairman thank you I Yi back Gman yields back chair now recognizes Miss Lee from Pennsylvania thank you Mr chair um 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 uh RT Uh 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 Snider are you aware of the CCP adopting Russia's propaganda Playbook and even working hand inhand with Russia to push out disinformation yes very much so at many levels 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 Snider in an interview with PBS Frontline program in September of 2022 you said and I quote 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 four finding by digital means and otherwise our weaknesses and making those weaknesses greater and greater Professor Snider have you observed Russia using this Playbook against the United States that that that is the Russian Playbook and interestingly I believe it's also a scarly consensus that Chinese information operations are moving in that direction there's 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 oh thank you uh for for sharing that there have been numerous official warnings not only that Russia has worked to interfere in US elections but that it did so specifically to boost Donald Trump's candidacy the Muller report warned that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and did so to support Donald Trump's candidacy on March 10th 2021 the National Intelligence Council issued a Declassified intelligence assessment regarding Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2020 US presidential election which said and I quote 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 sociopolitical divisions in the US Professor Snider why has Vladimir Putin sought to boost Donald Trump's candidacy and to be clear have Vladimir Putin's reasons for boosting uh Trump's candidacy changed over the years this is why it's so important that this 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's not personal and no one should take it personally it's 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 Professor Snider do you believe Russia is seeking to interfere in the upcoming elections in 2024 of course finally Professor Snider you recently wrote and I quote 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 is backing him in this one Professor SN 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 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's interesting about 2024 is that China is using memes that it gets from Russia and methods which are very similar to Russian the the the thing that one has to worry about is the trend is is the American part right it's not political Warfare unless there's an American part in it unless our minds and our mouths move it's 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 thank you while the stop the steal Maga party claim to love America and democracy so much they've shown they're willing to undermine it every step of the way even by courting our advoc Aries to ensure their permanent role uh I yell back chair now recognize Mr Timmons from South Carolina thank you Mr chairman General Spalding I'm going to be directing all my questions at you you're very familiar with Huawei and their attempt to use 5G technology to essentially Infiltrate The the technology infrastructure of developing countries and developed countries alike and in the really 2018 2019 as this was really uh becoming more of an issue the FBI was uh very uh reluctantly transparent to show the world that Huawei is not secure they're basically creating a back door their servers are compromised and the Chinese Communist party has access to all of the data there thereby compromising the privacy and cyber security of any country that has Huawei 5G and I actually uh sponsored a bill last Congress HR 4493 the promoting secure 5G Act of 2021 and what that bill does is it um tells countries that if they want to borrow money from international monetary institutions um they're going to have to have secure 5G essentially cuts off funding for them to implement uh unsecure 5G and so the Chinese in response to this and response to the FBI essentially outing them to the world that uh Huawei is insecure and that they're using their servers and uh there's no data security uh and no data privacy change course so they literally had to completely change course they had to get third party uh groups to come in and to try to vouch for them and allege they are actually secure and so again as we talk about how we're going to hold China accountable I think hwei is a perfect example because they were engaging in the global economy in bad faith they were doing things that they weren't supposed to do and the United States can say all we want but we're only a small portion of the global economy so when we tell our allies that this is a problem and why and and then our allies reverse course um you know India Israel bunch of European countries have essentially banned Huawei because it's not secure are you familiar with all of this very familiar and do you agree that by Leading um a coalition of Partners to hold the Chinese accountable it is a model that we are able to use to um change their behavior because again look China has an an enormous uh population they have enormous natural resources they're going to be a juggernaut in the global economy but they can't cheat we have to hold them accountable they cannot cheat so I just think that that while hwei uh is a perfect example of how we can lead the global Community we can lead a coalition of uh International Partners to change their behavior is that do you do you are you following me absolutely and totally agree so um I was very pleased uh the the promoting secure 5G act that I uh proposed in 2021 uh was included in the 2022 National Defense authorization act and was signed into the law uh December 27th of 2021 uh so I mean I'm doing my part to hold uh huwei accountable in the global economy but we need to replicate this exact game plan um across the board and you know we're talking about Tik Tock is a great example of again if they relocate uh their servers to to ensure privacy and and have the rule of law where um the Chinese Communist part is not going to be able to compromise the the privacy and data security of um millions and millions of Americans personal data I mean that's what we're looking for we're looking for um equity and we're looking for parity uh in the global economy it's not just uh 5G it's not just Tick Tock uh I mean the theft of intellectual property and the the subsid subsid of businesses that are competing in the global economy we have to reform their behavior and I really think people don't understand that our system of government um is designed to create uh a free market where the government doesn't put its uh 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 they they give them advantages in permitting they give them advantages in cheap energy costs they give them advantages in uh reduced uh labor standards whatever it is do you agree with all that I do agree with that one point I would make it 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's an important aspect of it absolutely we saw during Co that our lack of uh 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 uh to to appreciate that we cannot be overly reliant on on uh an economy on a country that that is acting in bad faith for the purpose of becoming the global hedgemon 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's not a matter of if but when if we do not change course um and with that Mr chairman I yeld back thank you very good chair recognize Mr Goldman thank you Mr chairman uh I'm 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 consistent ly 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 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 and investment uh investment firms Jim Biden you can put that down for a sec 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 their 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's why your impeachment investigation is a spectacular failure now let's turn to the issue of this hearing in the opening statement chairman chided democrats for adding Russia to a hearing on political Warfare 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 Muller 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 quote dirt unquote on Hillary Clinton Donald Trump asking Russia to hack into Hillary's Hillary Clinton's emails which they did and Paul manfor the campaign chairman giving internal polling data to a Russian uh spy and in fact special councel Mueller stated that the Trump campaign knew about the Russian interference welcomed it and used it for their benefit but in importantly special Council Mueller also charged two dozen Russians with interfering in the 2016 election through a hack hacking scheme and social media let's also point out that chairman comr 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 chairman of our national security committees in the house have stated that Russian disinformation has infiltrated the Republican party and is pared 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 Snider 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 Alle Chinese spy on the top G and one alleged Russian spy on the bottom Alexander smof Alexander smof is the one who planted the false information about the bribery that the chairman and uh both chairman have said is the best evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden G left 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 but not surprisingly the party of Putin in the majority wants to do just that let's just make one reference to the Chinese spies we're supposed to talk about chairman please stop my time chair stop the clock chair recognize Mr sessions Mr chairman I think that that was a personal remark at me and my party I think it's inappropriate and I would ask that the gentleman's words be taken down I don't think I don't think the gentleman mentioned your name did he he said the party of he he referred to my party as the party of Putin and that is a personal slanderous statement No it's not statement about a party by taken down a statement about a party is by definition not a party about a statement about Comm will suspend I I do get to defend myself Mr chairman and what I would say is that there was we've suspended do you wish to take down what you said no I do not okay well we suspend and I don't because it's not reference any individual member of Congress which is the only reason why words are taken down okay okay the ch chair has ruled that unfortunately since his uh remarks weren't uh directed towards a person but rather a party then they uh they cannot be taken down but I will remind everyone about the decorum uh that we have all agreed to abide by as well as the the purpose of this hearing it's about the Chinese Communist party's influence in America and I think uh Mr if I could you have no i' like my time restored to 20 seconds because I would like to talk about what you just said is the the 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 uh one more point to make on that 20 20 seconds thank you 19 so let's talk about the ccp's infiltration after gof 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 exped just like recogniz Russian agent was thank you Mr chairman um 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 every the way the party defines united front workk is that it is the whole part it is the work of the whole party and therefore as one of my friends and colleagues Alex josy put in the 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 every s 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 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 intelligent service with internal and external responsibilities some of which are Poli iCal influence and and they have often hidden inside the un united front organizations as a way to provide cover to conceal who they are as Intelligence Officers okay 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 us if we could keep it kind of brief I'm going to run out of time right well one of the ways that they work together is in mature policy systems like the Taiwan Taiwan Affairs issue or Hong Kong and maau Affairs where all of these organizations are in fact sharing cover organizations and working together with other 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 Ryu independence movement in okanawa in the hopes that us bases will not be there right um and which communities and institutions are vulnerable to Chinese and intelligence operations all of them all of them okay I have eight former colleagues that's a pretty broad all right um Dr Spalding um I'd like you to talk a little bit more about the failures of the intelligence community that my colleague mentioned earlier and which agencies could uh could be doing more I think they all could be do excuse me General Spalding I you I apologize my daddy said a general when he was in the Marine Corps in the Second World War I'm pelo in okona with chesty puller he told me only thing a general ever gave him was a hard time so I I can hear him whispering in my ear show him some respect so excuse me General thank you Congressman um it's it's really about the focus of the intelligence agencies and I think it's it's really been evident here in this hearing um the Chinese Communist Party seeks to divert our Focus from them and they really are using both of the conflicts that are ongoing both both the Russia Ukraine conflict and what I would call the Israel Iranian conflict and I think that's something that our U intelligence agencies really want to be focused on they want to be focused on the hard military aspect of National Security and what they're not focused on is the economic the social the political the cultural um part of their Warfare and that's really the main part the people's Liberation Army is an armed component of the Chinese Communist Party the the Chinese Communist Party themselves practice political Warfare as their Main Avenue of attack period and that's what the intelligence agencies don't focus on how does the um CCP shut down criticism of its human rights abuses or Warfare against America it use uses our own Media One good example is its attack on the Fallon gong it's basically convince the entire academic uh uh University system in the United States that they are a brainwash cult uh they've done same the same thing to our media institutions and so you know that is the way they do it is by controlling our own narratives within the you're saying that they're not a brainwash cult I think they're they're just a group of people that are dissidents of the Chinese Communist Regime yeah I agree with you too they put on a pretty cool dance routine it's pretty cool um Colonel Grant Nim did Miss did I'm going to SW switch gears pretty quick did dismissing the lab Lake Theory as a conspiracy or as a racist helped China muddy the waters on CO's origin oh it was key to it and it sorry it was it was key and it worked very very well did the labake theory as a conspiracy or a racist um or racist helped China further divide the American people in your opinion no completely it did more harm than they could have dreamed of doing I think they're pinching themselves now I think they are too um and I am out of time but I do appreciate all y'all appreciate your service Colonel I'm sorry we didn't get to talk more chair D recognize Miss Presley from m Metts thank you Mr chair and thank you to our Witnesses for being here as policy makers we have the responsibility to weigh our words uh carefully especially during discussions like the one that we're having here today the Chinese Communist party has adopted Russian propaganda efforts to interfere in our El 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 identity racial slurs are not a national security strategy they do nothing to help counter the threat posed by the CCP Mr Madison a June 2023 tweet you wrote that equating the Chinese Communist party to Chinese culture is quote racist By Any Other Name end quote 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's 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 one because the history of China is far bigger than the Chinese Communist party it is one of the world's great civilizations there contains you know whether you accept the way in which the current sort of minority structure is is described or not it includes a lot of different people from 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 was Seventh 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 that are elected Congressional members and their state senators and governors and president I think it dismisses the choices that they or their family have made thank you uh 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 quote China virus end quote 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 asked for unanimous consent to enter this study from the American Journal of Public Health into the record without objection to ordered Mr Mattis how can Congress address the CCP without contributing to xenophobia the first is to continue making such distinctions because even if they're 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 focused on and how our efforts should be guided the second is that I I firmly believe that we have a 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 as Colonel Nim mentioned the sort of the recreation of the foreign broadcast information service but he's really discussing its public dissemination issue to make information available because at the end of the day our federal government and law enforcement will focus on a legal beh behavior and that's where we want it in a democracy but what we're talking about is often unacceptable but still legal behavior and that's something that has to be guided by a civil a discussion in Civil Society about how we how we govern ourselves and how we deal with each other as Citizens thank you very much um 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 AI members of our community like the Southeast Asian deportation Relief act and stop contributing to hateful acts against them uh and finally Professor Snider when political leaders normalize racist Lang language that pits one group against another does it make our country more or less safe as our adversaries know and seek to exploit it makes us less safe thank you I yield back chair now recognizes Miss Green from Georgia Thank you Mr chairman um I think this is a very important hearing we're having today and I'd like to take a little time to respond uh to some misinformation that has been spread here uh Mr Snider 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 densification Meme Mr chairman I'd 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 aav Battalion without objection to ordered thank you time also put together a piece only three years ago and it's quite an extensive video that gives full information about the Nazis in Ukraine and their recruitment efforts that go all around the world um it's amazing to me that just in a few years time uh it's now considered misinformation to talk about the Nazis in Ukraine I'd like to quote the article it says that Ali sufen a security consultant and former FBI agent who has studied aav Nazis estimates that more than 177,000 foreign Fighters have come to Ukraine over the past six years from 50 countries according to Christopher Ray the FBI director he said that aav has been recruiting and radicalizing Training American citizens for years he also finished saying uh in his testimony to the US Senate that American white supremacists are actually traveling overseas to train uh this is an extremely concerning situation I don't think anyone in the United States government Americans do not support actual nais or white supremacist I know I certainly do not and I can't 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'd like to point out um also here's an NBC article stating that Ukraine's Nazi problem is real Mr Snider do you see this headline this is NBC news they say that Ukraine's Nazi problem is real uh even if Putin's densification claim is not so even our own American Media un you consider NBC or Time Magazine misinformation spreaders or disinformation media Outlets um this is contrary to to what you testified and there's frequent pictures all over anybody can find them of Nazis here they are this looks like something you'd see out of Hitler's Germany from Ukraine and this is something that's extremely important to talk about according to the Council of Europe however Ukraine has ranked well in the top half of countries in terms of how corrupt they are in The Last 5 Years Ukraine has ranked close to the countries like Gambia Iran Myanmar and Sierra Leon in corruption that's not very free and Democratic company to keep Ukraine has canceled their elections arrested members of the press not allowed uh 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're talking about the CCP I think it's extremely important to point out that our own wide openen border is the most dangerous threat to our national security according to CBP data there were 20 there have been 24,29 Chinese Nationals enter the United States at the southern border just this year in 2024 I want you to know that's up 7,000 % since Biden took office in 2021 when only 342 Chinese Nationals crossed our border when we're 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 didn't 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 doll overseas and we're doing nothing for our border so when you want to talk about misinformation Mr Snider you might actually look a little closer to American Media if you don't like what they're saying thank you Mr chairman I yield back Mr chairman does he have the opportunity to respond to the general lady sure I didn't ask him a question you asked multiple questions I did not ask him a question you certainly you said time has expired gentle ladies time's expired chair now recognizes Mr Frost from Florida thank you Mr chairman before I get into it it's interesting to hear my colleague just now talk about disavowing white supremacist when in 2022 you 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're going to focus on people not labels so get out of here with that damn hypocrisy and Dr Snider I'm going to give you some time to respond go ahead first of all I'd 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 um just demonstrated that point I think very powerfully on the question of Nazis I've WR 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've 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 Pol no far-right party has ever crossed 3% 3% in Ukrainian election so of course there are bad people in every country but by any comparative standard is a very small phenomenon in Russia on the other hand the Army includes openly Nazi formations such as uich 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're looking for Fascism and if there is anyone who is sincerely concerned about halting fascism or racism you would wish to Halt Russia thank you so much Dr Snyder and you know this hearing was put together to talk about political Warfare and it's 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 uh top ranking Republicans are having enough of it Mike uh uh Michael McCall said quote I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States unfortunately it's infected a good chunk of my party's base unquote we just heard some of that right now Republican uh Michael Turner chairman of the house intelligence committee quote we see directly coming from Russia attempts to mass communications that there are anti- Ukraine and pro-russia messages some of which we even hear being uttered on the house floor Dr Snider can you um talk really quickly about some of the main narratives Russia uses when engaging in political war Warfare I I I appreciate this question because there's so if we're going to talk about political Warfare we have to take into account the the ways that countries cooperate it's entirely artificial to say here's China here's America that means that we leave aside um Jin Jang Le 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've just seen an example of it passing through a person it's 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's no point in voting and we should support if we support anyone at all the person who's most likely to bring our system down that's the point 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's 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 cultural culture Foundation an online Journal run by a Russian intelligence service that has been sanctioned by the US 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 won't tell you is most of the money allocated for Ukraine is actually spent in America 90% of it going to Americans and so are these American companies that support Ukraine are these allegations based on evidence Dr Snyder and if not where do these allegations against President Selinsky and his cabinet come from first of all Us weapons are being used extremely efficiently on the Ukrainian Battlefield they're being audited in practice secondly there is an American institution which does audit way that is expended third of all you're 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 um there is no reason to think it they're fighting for their lives they're doing very well yeah thank you so much we got to let that sink in we have members the United States Congress using Russian disinformation to discredit Ukraine and help Russia and um I yield back thank you Joe yields back his time thank you very much uh now we yield myself five minutes Mr chairman before you do can I just have one unanimous consent request yes sir this is an article um answering our our friend the Gent lady from Georgia the aov Battalion how Putin built a false premise for a war against Nazis in Ukraine from CBS News thatje we add that I also was speaking with the gentleman about two articles which I would wish to enter into the record uh the label of which they would be treasury targets large Chinese network of illegal drug producers and SE secondly a letter signed by over 50 members including Senators uh to the Attorney General of the United States dated February thei concerning Chinese Nationals terrific owning property here for as it relates to growing marijuana without objection those both will be entered into the record uh thank you to the panel that is here uh each of you uh have added uh content today that I consider very valuable and necessary for us to hear uh I would like to if I could uh point to uh Colonel uh newsam if I could please uh Colonel newsam you are the author of a book that is called when China attacks a warning to America and part of this is not just related to the things that had been discussed by my by my colleagues today of drugs fenel Etc but in particular today I'd like to have you uh give us uh the warning when China attacks a warning to America of the newest deadly drug ingredient that has as the DEA uh mgram has said her agency is seized more than seen uh this zy z z zy xylazine if I'm saying that correctly when mixed with fenel in 48 states and evidently fentel on the scale of times it's a thousand times more potent than most of the drugs that are on the market and this is a thousand times fenel I believe I'm 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 uh knowledge of over time it's a higher higher high sir did I pronounce the name right and can you discuss that it's pron it's h spelled x y l a z i n e sir I think you're you're close enough what I would point out is that the deaths from Fentanyl and this is just the next variation of it um this is like taking a thousand times more potent though perhaps it it's it's bad news but what I point out sir is this is taking four or five divisions of Marines or Army off the rolls that's basically what you're doing we don't 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're doing um one thing I'd like to mention sir my the the book that I wrote it's largely about political Warfare it is and it's been going on for 30 plus years and I would suggest that based on what I've heard today that Ukraine could disappear it could have never come along and you would have the same problem with Chinese political Warfare there's a tendency to conflate the word po 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 it's not 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 don't mention Ukraine it never gets a mention um and that is something really is important to keep in mind and it is condescending I think to think that the Chinese are so stupid that they can't do anything uh without asking the Russians how to do it back to your drug that's think that's a point of influencing they have this align on influencing let's go back to the things that we were speaking about and that is the that you have accurately I think described the Chinese have a way that will diminish the amount of military AG young people that this country produces by aiming their drugs at us by causing the deaths of thousands of young people if not a addiction off other types of drugs you believe that they're really very smart of getting at young people causing their if not addiction demise or death and that's why they keep coming up with new drugs that are designed for that purpose is that your point that is how it works um and also s the successful economic Warfare which is part of political Warfare that ship so much of our manufacturing over to China it leaves these societies that are just dead and vulnerable to drug Warfare like we're saying it all feeds on itself and you can see the military effect that has on our military the death total we talk about well it's 10 times more people who were not killed but are not functional and this is something it is what the Chinese have done the Chinese Communists have done really throughout their entire existence and really it's a parasite designed to kill the host they have put it in in front of Americans and Americans have so to speak taking the bait thank you very much for your feedback I would now yield my time the gentlewoman Miss Crockett is recognized for five minutes thank you so much Mr chair um first of all I do want to clear up some actual misinformation um Dr Snider when you were testifying earlier um 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 '08 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're 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 um getting co-oped for propagandist C because that's what they do all right so we're g to talk about what my colleague um from Georgia she talked about misinformation and I I don't know what she was talking about but nevertheless we can look at her own tweets and we can find plenty of misinformation but we're 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 Us weapons used by Hamas against Israel Dr Snider 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 Us weapons that were being used by Hamas as she attempted to uh insinuate in this tweet I mean we we first of all I appreciate the the clarification I knew that the question who were the American president was going to be the toughest one I got from that side so I appreciate your helping out um the uh yes I mean obviously there what you have is a typical example of American Russian messaging where the implicit idea supposed to be we shouldn't give weapons to Ukraine because they're going to end up going somewhere else there's no evidence for that it's hard to think of an example where American weapons have been leveraged with such success as on the Ukrainian Battlefield thank you so much in fact for some people especially people that serve on the committee they may be surprised to know that it's actually a former Russian president and Putin's sidekick Dimitri and I don't want to slaughter his name so I'm going to say Dimitri M who actually she quote tweeted see the problem that we're having and the reason that we're 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's 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 they they have a $2 million budget you think that they would call on some staff to find out if they were telling the truth about the things that they're 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're 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're calling um victims and prisoners of War also known as convicted felons from January 6 I have an article that I like to enter into the record by unanimous consent that says neo-Nazi January 6 rioter pleads guilty without objection thank you so much so here's 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's coming out of China whether it's coming out of Russia or whoever is Ping it it is a problem because right now 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 Pedal lies and I'm tired of it because I didn't 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 don't get something done as they talk about the Border I do want to be clear the only reason we haven't gotten funding for the border is because they killed 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 pedaling Putin's lies thank you and I yield gentle lady yields back I will recognize myself for five minutes thank you uh to our Witnesses for being here today as we address the greatest threat to America's national security the Chinese Communist Party the 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've witnessed president G 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'm 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 back manufacturer firm with alarming ties to CCP military and intelligence services this new manufacturing facility is just 34 miles away from Fort lenworth 72 mil from Whitman Air Force Base 105 mil from Fort Riley and 165 mi from McConnell Air Force Base allowing canano USA to operate near the 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 no mistake Ceno USA is a wolf's a wolf and 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 inv investigation into Seno USA after the Biden Administration refused to act I urged the Kansas legislature to pass Common Sense Solutions 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's more important than ever that we work to stop Chinese back 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 Ceno Technology USA is a subsid a subsidiary of Seno jungu C sinano jungu has repeatedly received funding from the CCP for participation in state initiatives including in the CCP 863 program can you explain what the ccp's 863 program was and the purpose of it and other similar programs so the 863 program is named after the date that it was launched which is March 1986 and it is a it is a state in 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 name I think at least twice over the years and come up with sub you know related programs it still retains that focus on Military modernization let me stay with you sinano jungu 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 US could you explain how the united front might use a US subsidiary of a Chinese entity to conduct non-kinetic Warfare tactics such as economic Warfare so the United FR there there could very well be in the Chinese sort of the Chinese parent company a Party Committee that has a united front workor Department attached to it and works through that company it would largely be involved in mobilizing the employees of that company and channeling their efforts to support to support their party'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 or the local state Security Department of jangu Province so here we have a company that's received money from the 863 program and is engaged with the united front in the past should we believe that a US subsidiary of a PRC company is completely divorced from its PRC base umbrella it's possible but I think when you look at the way in which US media has reported on the supposed division between bite dance and Tik Tok that Tik Tok has not operated as though it were a separate company but rather as a a constituent part of bite dance with bite dance employees exercising authorities there there are reasons to have those similar concerns with Avic and its subsidiaries in the United States one of the the Chinese uh the prc's S major military aircraft manufacturers so I'm not sure of any I'm not sure of any company that I know has been very closely tied to the party State and it and its objectives that you can separate off and I'm not sure that many of the US employees understand what that relationship is yeah thank you very much and thank you to all the witnesses I now recognize Miss Porter of California next thank you so much Republicans have 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 weapon systems often built in their districts that they hope will deter conflict so now we have aircraft carriers fighter jets and tanks to fight a war 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 they have an an expansive claim called the n-h line that stretches well beyond any any um recognizable feature and and under under the um un convention the law of the Sea of what would be recognizable territory so do you believe this is an illegal claim whether or not I believe it's illegal is irrelevant because there's an international court that has decided that some of those claims are illegal okay so I want to make that clear China has taken an expansive unlawful um territorial claim to the South China Sea and they've ignored inter AAL 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's in the Philippines or in Vietnam Mr mtis can you briefly describe for us um illegal unreported and unregulated fishing it resem it's exactly what you described it but China the PRC has a particular role in this given that their deep sea fishing fleet is far larger than any of any of the other countries and because it is illegal and unreported and unregulated it is also an nexcess for forced labor and um those those ships have been so violating the borders and and Eon exclusive economic zones of other countries including the in the Western Hemisphere um so I'm not quite sure how far you want to go that's perfect so what we have is Chinese fishing fleets they're 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 um roll over Vietnam they're 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 bulldo over Vietnam by including by stealing its fish and they have largely depleted Vietnam's Fisheries what are the consequences to Vietnam there's obviously the loss of of economic Revenue there is the um sort of impoverishment of of local Fishers how does that help China well one most Seafood is processed in the PRC and therefore it sort of makes that makes Vietnam and other countries dependent upon that processed food um and yeah yeah so I mean look China's 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 Warf fares General Spalding what are some of the risks of the of China being successful in Breaking international law without consequence I think it everybody else to do the same thing and I think that's the the challenge here we've seen a complete breakdown in the liberal Democratic order as a result so Mr matthys um does Vietnam have the military capacity to secure its exclusive economic zone from Chinese incursions no so Vietnam can't 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 us interests in the long term so what is the United States doing about this Mr matthys which US agency protects Global Fisheries do you know I believe it's a combination of the Coast Guard and Noah 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 so it's the Co guard do you know how many Cutters the Coast Guard has in the Western Pacific I'm going to guess somewhere between zero and two yeah five five Cutters to protect roughly 40 million square miles so look in Washington we have a gadget problem everyone wants the fanciest weapon systems but to combat illegal fishing to combat the influence of the CCP all you need you don't need stealth bombers you don't need an aircraft carrier you need is a relative ly inexpensive Coast Guard Cutter and funding for good coastes who want to serve their country that's 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 the gentle lady yields back the chair recognizes the gentleman from New York Mr Langworthy thank you very much Mr chairman uh the Chinese Communist party's united front operation has formed Chinese students and Scholars associations uh 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 uh in practice the Chinese students and Scholars Association serve as eyes and ears uh for the Chinese government on American campuses and allows the CCP to Monitor and retaliate against Chinese National studying abroad uh these students and Scholars associations receive funding directly from Chinese diplomatic staff and work to ensure ideological uniformity through intimidation and pressure tactics uh the CCP has also o work to outpace the US in producing stem field PhD graduates and has gained access into every level of America's education system uh so Mr Mattis it's 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 uh Ministry of Education and how they're working to influence and monitor Chinese students abroad well fundamentally the the the PRC and the party state is trying to prevent Chinese students from having a free and full experience on a US University campus um this has been an issue for quite some time where the effort to control what Chinese students participate in and what they're able what they're able to experience at us University is constrained and controlled uh a friend of mine who worked at 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 don't put me in a group with another Chinese student because if if I am then I won't be able to participate and I won't be able to and I want to do this project in a real way so that's one of the ways in which this is that's one of the ways in which harm is done a second way which through the cssa or through the through a confucious 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 kind of programming and rejects other kind of programming in the name of preserving that that relationship that they consider to be productive very good thank you and not only is a CCP directly influencing our students in our universities on a daily basis but they're reaping the rewards of our education as they quickly are outpacing the US and producing stem PhD graduates on top of this the US has continued to lose more and more jobs to China as you can see in the graphic I have behind me you know due to our nation's ongoing trade deficit it's never been more obvious and right in our face than the CCP is targeting our schools and our jobs so now Colonel Nim 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 uh yes sir very concerned and as I think i' mentioned earlier whenever you see the announcement of some really impressive advance in technology at an American University it's almost always has uh PRC Nationals involved in it and where this is most important from my perspective is that uh 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 uh able in certain circumstances to beat us today and they have the the technological advances uh that they're putting to military use in on in outer space and on this you know ground sea and below the the sea that it is it's breathtaking how they've done it we have actually helped them along in that process and it's something that we could end we it could end up on the short end of a fight if it comes well thank you very much I want to take the remainder of my time and look at some of the troubling instances uh that the committee is aware of in which the CCP has sought to directly influence our children and our education system uh one instance that I find very concerning especially in the wake of several cyber attacks uh targeted towards the United States over the past few years occurred just recently in August of 23 uh just down the road in Fairfax County and 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 uh Colonel Nim it's 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 well it's what they do and it's not just the Thomas Jefferson High School you have confucious classrooms we hear about confuscious institutes and colleges but the confucious classrooms start off from preschool all the way up through elementary school and you indoctrinate uh a new generation with the idea that the Chinese Communists who killed 50 million of their own people in peace time and good weather are really just lovable pandas uh it's just breathtakingly successful and U political Warfare thank you very much and I yield back thank you uh the chair recognizes the gentle lady from Michigan Miss TB for five minutes thank you Mr chair uh I think my colleagues know where I'm going to go with this because I consistently try to get them reentered uh I'm really sick and tired of us not leaving the campaigning at the Capitol steps this is just another Committee hearing where we're 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 chair colan uh chairman uh comr 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 treat literally treat communities in my district um like poisoning them as the cost of doing business politicians that put their own interests before the residents many of which many of which in this in this committee that own stocks and War weapon manufacturing so when we do have to vote Yes or my colleagues have to get up on the floor and vote for uh more bombs and weapons in other countries they actually make money personal money their stock values go up look it up people like are 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 Pro 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 dollar 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 Jerry mandry and our districts corrupting our democracy and this outside influence but it's 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 and and even though however like literally it set $7.8 million in unconstitutional payments from foreign governments while he was our commander-in-chief however before the committee could receive any more documents related to Russia chairman comr and uh the F impeached president's lawyer stopped the production of any further documents and Professor Snider me I don't know if you've been following it you know it's something that I know our ranking member Raskin heard me talk about this all the time I call I always call my professor about the mum's calls and how dangerous and how connected it is of just even the subject matter of what we're talking about today but do you think we you know if the committee were interested in understanding the threats of political Warfare facing the United States as well as the influence of pedaling directed by Foreign governments against our country shouldn't it demand that the counting firm and the the of the forever imp Peach president produce all those payments received by the president from foreign governments I I would have I would have certainly have thought so since every serious scarly treatment and every also document that I've read from the Chinese side stresses the importance of such Financial relationships in Recruitment and long-distance management I agree and yet instead we're committee you know the current committee have worked to help the forever imp Peach president bury the evidence and keep the facts from the American people I think it's incredibly dangerous and lastly just because it really made me angry and I think it makes my constituents angry but I want to submit for the record uh 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 without objection yeah this one had me stuck really really with me and it just is so blatant the article details how military Cruise flying supplies to and from the Middle East were redirected from their usual overnight stays stops at the US 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 fre infrequently used US military bases where they typically stopped surprise surprise for all my committee staff uh 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's just these kinds of things have 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 I hope my colleagues really take seriously because I don't care if it's a Democrat or Republican no one ever should sit there in the White House out of the overw office running a business to profit themselves it is unconstitutional and again demands that kind of accountability and that's what I want this committee to address thank you so much I yield the gentle lady yields back the chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida Mr MTZ for five minutes uh thank you Mr chairman um you know let me start uh by saying that uh obviously chairman Comer's not here but I I think in light of what we witnessed earlier I think it's important that together as a committee that we begin uh chairman Comer's therapy session right um you know a member of the other side wanted to confirm what the title of the hearing was right that Chinese propaganda well we know the title of the hearing certainly isn't about impeachment anymore and chairman comr has suffered tremendous loss and we all know in our life what it's like to suffer tremendous loss there's all sto sorts of different stages of grief and that's the loss obviously of his of his impeachment hearing and everyone deals with that different ways and sometimes it takes takes time to grieve and struggle and and fill that hole that 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 comr get better is we have to get to the root cause right so for today's therapy session okay I want to talk about denial right the denial that the impeachment hearings are over over and the denial obviously that he started with the 1023 form which was Russian disinformation and so you know chairman comr 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 comr 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're pulling for him we really we really are I know I know it's been hard uh to become uh someone who was used by the Russians but the good news is is that he set this hearing today on Chinese propaganda propaganda because we've already lost him to Russian propaganda I mean we got to build a force field around the chairman to make sure we don't lose him to Chinese propaganda a as well in fact you can see behind me these are quotes from the chairman chairman comr 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 we we got to make the chairman understand that it's going to be okay we will get him through this but he's got to recognize he's got to recognize that denial is not just a river in Egypt he 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 I say this as someone whose grandparents uh escaped the Holocaust so my grandmother was part of the Kinder transport out of Germany uh her parents were killed in aitz my grandfather her husband escaped Poland from the pgrs um you know the idea that we pretend that behavior is acceptable and regular there are no concentration camps in Ukraine they're not taking babies and shooting them in the air cuz they're Jewish there's no gas Chambers there's no ovens they're not railing people in they're not ripping gold out of people's mouth they're not taking stuff out of their home they're not trying to erase a people they're 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's despicable that we use that and we allow it and we sit here like somehow it's regular oh Mr chairman I I welcome you back I'm I'm sorry we were trying to talk together and you know get you through the through the hearing but but I I look forward potentially to talking to you at a future session so thank you I yield back Gman yields back chair now recognizes myself for uh questions Mr bis you you mentioned in your testimony that there was a shortage of expertise in the federal government uh with respect to China would you say that our government is ill-prepared for what China currently has with respect to their uh schemes against our our government and our way of life does the government have a plan I would put it I would put it this way that we are unprepared we don't have enough China expertise to execute our own policy so so we're using for example we were 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 and explain why that's important that that we do have a plan and that's the purpose of this hearing and I apologize that there you know clowns like the last questioner that that uh get off topic but explain why that's important to have a plan well in some form or another nearly every federal department has some has some role to play whether it's because they fund research and therefore they have a responsibility to maintain the Integrity of that research they are 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 you can kind of go down each one and see that exactly uh Colonel Nome what is unrestricted Warfare China's master plan to destroy America what un unrestricted Warfare refers to is Chinese approach to going after its enemy and the United States is the one they call their main enemy that that that publication states that the battlefield will be everywhere right that's what does that mean for America it means anything goes you know we tend to expect a war to start on the day the shooting starts and we say we're at War to the Chinese we're already at War you've said that us needs its own political Warfare strategy against the Chinese Communist party what should that look like well it needs to be a first you a comprehensive plan that you use your every tool you've got economic Financial um media propaganda um but more than anything you've got to have an awareness you're actually at War and then you've got to have somebody who's responsible for running it I can't see who in United the USG uh is the person who does political Warfare I saw an an an inter what uh SEC State Department official testifying recently and you could tell he had no idea about political Warfare but someone's got to be in charge and responsible for it so General Spalding how does the Chinese Communist Party differ from the Soviet Union in its approach to political Warfare against America I don't think it differs uh in his approach it differs in the tools it has available to itself so the Soviet Union was cut off from the global economy so globalization wasn't a thing and it wasn't a part of it and then furthermore Silicon Valley hadn't developed all the tools of influence and the technological reach into our own homes into each individual citizen so those tools far Sur pass anything that were available to the Soviet Union in terms of active measures so how could our methods of combating the Soviet Union work against the Chinese Communist Party well as I mentioned previously bringing back cocom bringing back the US information agency making public diplomacy and 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 uh within the White House you have the National Security Council focus on National Security have National Economic Council focus on trade and they fight over the the the what challenges are coming in because of the Chinese Communist party they need to be United who would you is there any existing agency or any existing person within the government uh our present government structure that you would put in charge of uh trying to educate this Administration and the in the cabinets and and the divisions within each cabinet about the potential Perils of the CCP well that's the the job of the intelligence agencies but they're 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're not going to do do anything against it Mr bis is there I'll ask each each of you is there a single person our agency in the in the government that should be in charge of that do you agree with the intelligence Community or you have I think it this is fairly clearly the the job of the president the Secretary of State the National Security Council and the and the supporting staff and when we have done this well in the past we had a a 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 we understood the Marshall Plan as part of political Warfare and we understood some of our education and cultural exchange the idea of putting Americans abroad so that so that other countries could have a true experience of Americans rather than the Soviet propaganda right cinal you have response well it's 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 it have that personality that can make could work 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 and uh specific people with uh with the business model uh to to combat China's growing influence in the in the United States and uh it's 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 we can do that I hope that you know we've seen from uh representive cona and representative Christ morte who asked serious credible questions today and I appreciate that that this is a huge problem in America and uh it doesn't sound like the our 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 uh reasonable members of the committee on the other side of the aisle to work in a bipartisan manner to see that that happen so uh that concludes our questioning I want to thank our Witnesses again today for your testimony uh with that and without objection all members have five legislative days within which to submit materials Mr chman we're doing closings I had planned on it oh but your staff had told us that we were doing okay I will I will yield you how much you talk just like 45 minutes something like that so yeah no I'm happy to take a minute or two whatever you think we need to close take take a minute yeah you're very kind and generous Mr chairman um I want to thank Professor Snider um 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 uh not everybody would take the time out the middle of their teaching week to come to it so thank you um there were several words that recurred through the day one of them was authoritarianism one of them was corruption 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 um 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 click 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 Snider for participating 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 lead ERS either through money or comprom or psychological manipulation I just want to show you what happens when our leaders cave in to China and to Russia so here are some of the the tweets that were sent out by the last president about about President XI in China smart brilliant everything perfect we love each other friend of mine a very very good man there's 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's nobody like that the look The Brain the whole thing and here's uh the 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 I yield back to you yield back I'll recognize myself for closing remarks again I want to thank uh our our three credible witnesses that were here today to talk about this this subject uh this is something that this committee is going to take very seriously moving forward uh we recognize the fact that our government doesn't have a plan to combat China's growing influence and uh we recognize that it doesn't appear they they recognize the threat you know in the private sector I'm a farmer all my life I've uh owned Farms graduated from Western Kentucky University with a degree in agriculture uh I was Commissioner of Agriculture in Kentucky which is elected Statewide office before I came to to Congress and one of the things I always talked about agriculture was that in agriculture we were the one industry that had a trade surplus with China well that's changed in the last 12 months China now has a tra Trade Surplus with us in agriculture and when you talk about National Security there's no greater threat to our national security than the need to have a safe healthy reliable food supply I wanted to mention that because you the the growing influence of China is now uh a major threat to every industry in America uh Miss McAn talked about the electric vehicle industry and and the dependence on China and that and that's kind of the seems like the the the position of this Administration to push everything to the electric vehicles well that makes us even more dependent on China that's a problem the policies are a problem but we need to recognize the fact that China manipulates our currency China uh uh steals our intellectual property and our patents so our private companies that that invest billions of dollars in research and development it's all being stolen by the Chinese Communist party and then the last thing our education system in America what's very concerning to me and something I didn't know until we started this this investigation was how much Anonymous money flows into our research universities in America in the University of pens 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 estate and the current president United State I think this is a problem because what we've seen by uh Dr Fox who's presiding over her own Committee hearing down the hall on uh anti-Semitism in uh in our public universities is that uh we've got a lot of indoctrination that's that's taking place in our universities that that's anti-democratic I believe is what's fueling a lot of the support for Hamas in the in the uh among the the seems like growing faction of the of the Democrat Party now so this is there's not a single member of our party who supports him us that seems to be a very uh huge issue in America the disinformation campaign that's that's taking place in our universities but where is it being funded and I think that one of the things that we need to to focus on in this committee is greater transparency with where all of this money is coming from into these universities yes we've done a decent job identifying the problem with Tik Tock and the houses has acted on that but 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's the Department of Agriculture or the Department of Education the Department of Defense Department of energy every agency needs to First recognize that we have a threat from China and secondly we need to have a plan to combat that threat to identify when China uh 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 uh look forward to working with you all in the future Mr chairman I have a unanimous consent request uh for the I want to introduce into the record the White House's indopacific strategy released in February of 2022 reaffirming the country's commitment to detering PRC military aggression in the Taiwan straight and a fact sheet detailing the $4 billion requested in the president's budget request for 202 for a more free open and secure indopacific bolstering us alliances without objection to order with that and without objection all members have five legislative days within which to submit materials and additional written questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses they're no further Business Without objection the committee stands adjourned e e e

Channel: GOP Oversight

Views: 22,074

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Id: VoQZjUCT6bU

Length: 250min 52sec (15052 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2024