US House Oversight Committee Warns of Inadequate Response to Chinese Influence Operations

On 24 Octo­ber 2024, the House Com­mit­tee on Over­sight and Account­abil­i­ty report­ed that fed­er­al agen­cies lack a coor­di­nat­ed strat­e­gy to counter Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty influ­ence oper­a­tions in the Unit­ed States. The arti­cle begins:

House Com­mit­tee on Over­sight and Account­abil­i­ty Chair­man James Com­er (R‑Ky.) released a staff report today titled “CCP Polit­i­cal War­fare: Fed­er­al Agen­cies Urgent­ly Need a Gov­ern­ment-Wide Strat­e­gy.” The report, which includes infor­ma­tion obtained dur­ing the Com­mit­tee’s gov­ern­ment-wide inves­ti­ga­tion into 25 fed­er­al sec­tors, details how the Biden-Har­ris Admin­is­tra­tion is dan­ger­ous­ly behind in imple­ment­ing mea­sures to com­bat the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty’s (CCP) influ­ence and infil­tra­tion cam­paign. The Over­sight Com­mit­tee con­duct­ed mul­ti­ple hear­ings, held dozens of brief­in­gs, and found that most agen­cies’ solu­tions and poli­cies either ignore, pla­cate, or only weak­ly address the CCP’s efforts to influ­ence and infil­trate the Unit­ed States. To counter CCP polit­i­cal war­fare, the report offers rec­om­men­da­tions for fed­er­al agen­cies to use exist­ing resources to defend Amer­i­ca and crit­i­cal U.S. industries…

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Key Points:

1. A com­pre­hen­sive inves­ti­ga­tion across 25 fed­er­al sec­tors found inad­e­quate mea­sures to address Chi­nese influ­ence operations.
2. The report crit­i­cizes fed­er­al agen­cies for fail­ing to devel­op cohe­sive strate­gies against what it terms “CCP unre­strict­ed warfare.”
3. The com­mit­tee rec­om­mends imple­ment­ing tar­get­ed strate­gies rather than gen­er­al for­eign influ­ence approach­es using exist­ing resources.
4. The inves­ti­ga­tion con­cludes that Chi­nese oper­a­tions have already estab­lished a pres­ence with­in U.S. insti­tu­tions and influ­en­tial circles.