Comer: Government Agencies Must Step Up to Combat the CCP’s Influence and Infiltration Campaign

WASHINGTON – House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today delivered opening remarks at a hearing titled “A War Without Weapons: CCP Political Warfare Against America, Part I.” Chairman Comer outlined how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waging an influence and infiltration campaign that threatens U.S. military readiness, the technology sector, financial markets, agriculture industry, education systems, intellectual property, and our own federal government agencies. These federal agencies have important responsibilities to safeguard Americans from the CCP’s tactics and Chairman Comer noted that the House Oversight Committee is working to ensure the federal government is taking every action necessary to thwart China’s political warfare. He concluded that today’s hearing is the first in a series that will expose China’s dangerous infiltration campaign and the Committee will examine solutions that agencies can adopt to eliminate CCP threats.

Below are Chairman Comer’s remarks as prepared for delivery:

Today’s hearing is an opportunity to understand what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is, and what it seeks to achieve in conducting warfare against the United States right now, without having to fire a single shot. 

We will hear from three serious China experts—with decades of experience in U.S. intelligence, national security, and the military—about CCP political warfare.  This will help the Committee understand what federal agencies can and should be doing to safeguard the homeland. 

What is the CCP? It is the ruling authoritarian regime of China.  While it is enslaving its own people in forced labor camps in China, it is also brazenly engaging in dozens of forms of warfare against America.  Each warfare tactic seeks the destruction of our country.

For decades, the CCP has sought to infiltrate and influence every aspect of American society.  Chief among the Party’s tactics is political warfare.  Political warfare is meant to influence the emotions, motives, and behavior of Americans in a manner favorable to China’s objectives.

By waging political warfare, the CCP seeks to weaken America so that we cannot effectively fight in a kinetic war.

According to the CCP itself: “the battlefield will be everywhere.” 

It already is.  American sectors and communities targeted by the CCP, include farming, business, K-12 schools, universities, research institutions, technology, energy, food supply, the defense industry, critical infrastructure, consumer goods, ethnic groups, religious communities, media, social media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and more. 

By getting Americans dependent on cheap and sometimes dangerous goods made in China, digital fentanyl like TikTok, and actual fentanyl, the CCP is determined to achieve its goal of defeating America on the global stage. 

If we don’t understand what the CCP is and that this authoritarian regime considers America its “main enemy,” we cannot secure our country.

The CCP’s methods are unconventional and may be hard to recognize.  But its destructive ambitions to manipulate American minds, conduct espionage, steal intellectual property and trade secrets, bring fentanyl into our country, and many, many other 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.”  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 Xi Jinping has described the united front as the CCP’s “magic weapon.”

The united front carries out relationship-focused influence campaigns through a multitude of proxies—found in the business community, amongst cultural and political leaders, and in other influential circles—in America and around the world to advance CCP interests. 

These proxies are individuals or entities used and manipulated by the united front to do the CCP’s bidding for it.  Why bother doing the dirty work yourself when you can coopt and influence people to knowingly or unknowingly advance the CCP’s interests for it?

One of the most destructive of the CCP’s tactics is its crusade to intentionally divide Americans, often by exacerbating existing societal divisions. 

To be clear, it is the Chinese Communist Party who is to blame here—not people of Chinese descent, who themselves are often singled out using these exact same CCP warfare 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 of or accountability for the CCP.

Government agencies have important responsibilities to the many American communities and sectors targeted by the CCP.  The Oversight Committee’s message to federal agencies is this: the threat from the CCP is grave.  You must step up and recognize what the CCP is seeking to do to our country.  If agencies 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 Minority appear uninterested in addressing CCP unrestricted warfare. Instead of any number of experts on China who they could have invited, they have instead invited a professor whose expertise is in European history and Russia.

Russia is of course an important issue, as anyone following the news can tell you.  Vladimir Putin is a threat, a brute, and no friend to America.  But I would not invite one of our China experts to talk about St. Petersburg and Moscow.

And if Democrats do not want to confront the threat of the Chinese Communist Party’s political warfare against the United States, I believe that is a very serious mistake.

It’s a mistake because Democrats are doing exactly what the CCP expects from American politicians: argue among ourselves or look the other way and not confront the CCP’s influence and infiltration tactics.

The nation faces a real threat from CCP manipulation.  It is a quiet, yet pervasive and dangerous threat that affects Americans every day.  This Committee seeks to confront that threat.

But Republicans are not going to stop Democrats from beclowning themselves talking about Russia during a hearing on China.

While they seek to distract from our discussion about CCP influence, we will tackle the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to influence and weaken our country.

The solutions agencies adopt must not only eliminate CCP infiltration and influence from our country.  They must help inspire and equip Americans to strengthen their communities, innovate, and create the technologies and phenomena that will secure a strong and prosperous future for our nation. 

Strong American communities can resist even the most aggressive CCP political warfare.  And as we resist CCP unrestricted warfare, we must remain a free society, bound by the Constitution.  

I thank the witnesses for appearing today and look forward to their testimony.

I now yield to Ranking Member Raskin for his opening remarks.

Read More: Chairman Comer Launches Government-Wide Investigation into China’s Ongoing Efforts to Infiltrate and Influence the United States