Rep. Jim Banks (R-Indiana) is concerned about the rising threat China poses to the United States, and expressed his fears during a speech to the Heritage Foundation on June 21.
Banks is in his third term representing the Hoosier State's 3rd District and is a member of the House Committee on Armed Services, the House Committee on Education and Labor, and House Committee on Veterans. He also serves as chairman of the Republican Study Committee.
“America cannot both control its own destiny in the century ahead and ignore the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses to our long-term viability as a nation,” Banks said. “When it comes to U.S. competition with China, one big misconception is that the competition is happening in secret when, in fact, examples of Chinese influence operations in the United States can be seen in public view. The Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department’s mission is to influence foreigners and foreign institutions, and especially those in America. Their work can be seen on college campuses all over the country.
“Xi Jinping called the United Front his magic weapon for the Chinese people's great rejuvenation," he added. "There are at least 250 United Front-tied organizations in the U.S. The United Front also oversees Confucius Institutes and Chinese universities, [which] establish partnerships with American universities, have received government-funded research and funding on their campuses. Most of these partnerships aren't random. The United Front specifically targets universities with strong STEM programs.”
Banks said there have been several espionage attempts in recent years as the Chinese government steps up its influence operations at U.S. universities, including a Chinese Harvard-affiliated cancer researcher who was caught with 21 vials of cells stolen from a laboratory from a Boston hospital.
“A Chinese professor conducting sensitive research at the University of Kansas was indicted recently after he concealed his ties with a Chinese university," Banks said. "A Chinese scholar at UCLA was convicted for shipping banned missile technology back to China. A Chinese student at Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology was charged with helping to recruit spies for China's version of the CIA. A Chinese professor was recently accused of stealing American technology to benefit Weiwei and returned to China after being sentenced to lying to the FBI.”
He said President Donald Trump took Chinese espionage attempts seriously during his administration, and the first president to do so.
“In December of 2020, President Trump sanctioned the United Front Work Department for the very first time, addressing a threat that was never addressed by the United States before,” Banks said. “During the Trump presidency, the Department of Education began cracking down on universities’ acceptance of foreign gifts under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. Under President Trump, the U.S. closed the Chinese consulate in Houston after finding an intelligence gathering operation aided by diplomats to collect scientific research from American universities."
He said 104 out of the 118 Confucius Institute branches on American university campuses have closed or are in the process of closing by 2022.
“However, the Biden administration fundamentally does not understand the China threat and as undone in a year and a half much of the progress that was done under President Trump,” Banks said. “This administration cannot even bring itself to define China as an adversary. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman even used the phrase healthy competition to describe U.S. relations with China, parroting the Chinese Foreign Ministry's use of the same phrase in April 2021. She's singing off of the Chinese Communist Party's song sheet.”
Banks said proposed defense budgets over the last two years would underfund our warfighters amid record high inflation while supporting a Department of Defense budget that takes 24 Navy ships out of commission, more than all of the ships lost at Pearl Harbor.
“By the end of 2021, the Biden administration didn't launch a single Section 117 investigation. In fact, American universities disclosed $1.6 billion in foreign donation just from July 6, 2020 to Jan. 20, 2021,” Banks said. “But just $4 million has been reported in Biden's first year in office, showing how unserious this administration is in tracking what the Chinese Communist Party is investing in on U.S. campuses today.
"Democrats in Congress as well are not serious about dealing with the China threat," he said. "Their centerpiece China bill does little to nothing to take on China's theft of intellectual property, their military buildup or their malign activities in the United States. The House bill even includes billions of dollars to the U.N. Climate Fund rather than countering China.”
He said these bills would help China in many ways, including the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, or the COMPETES Act, which passed on an almost straight party-line vote, 222-210, on Feb. 4. They lack adequate guardrails for federal funds to universities, he said.
“I'm greatly concerned that the direction that our country is heading in is not addressing the China threat seriously,” Banks said.
He said there is not bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate for this proposal and he has introduced the Countering Communist China Act, saying it is the Republican Study Committee’s answer to the Endless Frontier Act introduced in the Senate.
“I'm proud to tell you, I have 54 colleagues who have joined me in co-sponsoring this important bill," Banks said. "This bill would do more to counter China with only a fraction of the cost,” he said. “It funds our military, it funds Border Patrol and sanctions enforcement.”
Banks said he also recently introduced a bill to amend Section 117 of the Higher Education Act to increase accountability on foreign gift reporting. It would strengthen scrutiny on foreign gifts in contrast to universities, but it would also give the federal government a say on whether universities can accept certain gifts and contracts.
He noted that his Protect Our Universities Act strengthens oversight on foreign students who are participating in sensitive university research and restricts the use of Huawei and ZTE in federally funded university research.
Banks said he looks forward to Republicans regaining a majority in the House.
“I look forward to curbing China's influence operations in the U.S. and passing several bills on this important topic,” he said. “I can't think of anything that's more important to be a major part of the centerpiece of the Republican agenda when we take back the House majority next year, then combating this important threat to this vital, vital threat to our country's security.”
