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Weekend Reads
From mysterious drone sightings to Beijing-linked cyberattacks to an inexplicable spike of Chinese nationals crossing the United States’ southern border, it is clear that the Chinese Communist Party poses a grave threat to the US homeland.
Hudson’s Jonathan Ward hosted Congressman Mark Green (R-TN), chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, to discuss why America needs a strategy to counter these threats to win the new cold war against China.
Key Insights
1. The Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon cyberattacks are ongoing. The US needs to go on the offensive to deter future breaches.
“Who you texted, who you called and when, your geolocation, all that data is now in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. And I can tell you this—and I specifically asked in the classified briefing if I could say this, it’s in the open-source information—I can confirm, they’re still in the system. . . . We don’t have a national security strategy on cyber response. If you hit the United States with a nuclear weapon, we have the response; actually, we have first use on nuclear. I think we’re one of the few countries that say, We’ll go nuclear on a kinetic strike against the United States or US assets or allies. We have no statement on what we’ll do if you hit us with cyber. [Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon] are two prominent cyberattacks. It’s time we go on the offensive. I don’t mean defensive, I mean offensive. It’s time to strike back. We need to make the world aware that we have the capability. China needs to know where the knife is against their throat. I’m confident that our team has capabilities that are potentially, I think, beyond the Chinese. We just need to let them know.”
2. China’s role in supply chains poses a national security threat.
“Look at the crane issue: 80 percent of cranes [are] manufactured by one company from China. We discover now there are modems on these that can communicate what they see back to China—knowing exactly which military units and aircraft and tanks and jeeps are loaded on which ships. Well, now we know which ship to sink. This is insanity that we’ve just allowed this to happen. Our committee, along with [Mike] Gallagher at the time and now [John] Moolenaar, did this investigation into the cranes and discovered these modems that allow them to monitor what we’re doing. You think about the economic data, knowing what goes through which port, it’s all about data analytics now for business. . . . Well, they have all that data because they’re sitting there running every crane in America’s ports.”
3. America’s open southern border allows adversaries like China to threaten the US homeland.
“We have to stop the flow. We have to seal off our border. This four years of a wide-open, anybody can come in the United States border has done massive damage to the United States of America. There were [around 24,000 Chinese nationals] who came across our southern border in FY ’23 . . . [and] 37,000 in ’24. Eighty percent [were] military-aged people. And, I am able to tell you, many with ties to the CCP. If you look at the 10 years prior to that spike, the largest number was 1,800 in a year. This is a planned strategy of the CCP, and Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas have facilitated this. If you want to deny that, then put the blinders on and be Neville Chamberlain. But this is where we are now, and these 60,000 people are somewhere in our country—maybe driving drones.”
Go Deeper
One aspect of China’s strategy in a conflict against the US would be to reduce the American people’s will to respond. Jonathan Ward explains how the CCP would target Americans on Fox Business.
The US can respond to persistent Chinese hacking in two possible ways: it can either (1) provide better security to prevent hacking or (2) impose targeted and punishing sanctions on the offending Chinese state actors. The US should increase its focus on the latter, argues Harold Furchtgott-Roth.
Olivia Enos explains why the next Trump administration should prioritize political prisoner advocacy in its policy toward China and gives 10 recommendations for how it can do so.
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