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The House of Representatives passed a series of bills during the week of September 9^th addressing the multi-level threats to America’s national security posed by the Chinese Communist regime. A number of these bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support. However, most House Democrats opposed several common-sense bills that the House Republican majority was able to pass anyway, which are directed at curbing the Chinese regime’s economic, ideological, and surveillance offensives in the United States. The Biden-Harris administration also expressed its opposition to these national security-enhancing bills.

One of these bills is called the End Chinese Dominance of Electric Vehicles in America Act. A fact sheet disseminated by the House Ways and Means Committee chaired by Rep. Jason Smith, (R-MO), explains the need for this bill to close loopholes that the Biden-Harris administration’s rules had created to the Democrats’ already disastrous Inflation Reduction Act. These loopholes regarding eligibility for electric vehicle (EV) tax subsidies benefit China. One Biden-Harris loophole, according to the fact sheet, allows an entity owned by a Chinese billionaire to “benefit from the EV [tax] subsidies as long as his or her ties to the Chinese Communist Party or other hostile government were unofficial.” Another loophole that the End Chinese Dominance of Electric Vehicles in America Act closes allows Chinese manufacturers to “produce all materials and parts upstream of the battery component and remain eligible to benefit from the EV tax subsidies.”

“It’s time we put the brakes on giving taxpayer money to Chinese billionaires and the Chinese Communist Party,” said Chairman Smith.

Only seven Democrats voted in support of this bill. The rest of the Democrat House members did not vote in favor, and the Biden-Harris administration sharply criticized the bill. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), a fierce opponent of the bill, made the counterintuitive argument that the bill would “undermine the United States’ ability to compete in the global EV market.”

China dominates the market for electric vehicle components and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Yet, according to Rep. Dingell, incentivizing the production and purchase of electric vehicles made with components sourced from Chinese companies will somehow make U.S. vehicle manufacturers less dependent on China now and for the foreseeable future. Her argument defies common sense.

Green New Deal extremists also oppose the bill. They don’t mind benefiting the U.S.’s most dangerous adversary by using tax incentives to spur the production and purchase of electric vehicles in the U.S. even if they contain Chinese-sourced components. All that counts for the anti-fossil fuel fanatics is accelerating the end of the era of gas-powered vehicles by whatever means possible.

The House also passed the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act, which most Democrat members opposed. This bill restricts Department of Homeland Security funding of colleges and universities that maintain ties with Confucius Institutes or other entities linked to the Chinese Communist regime that have sinister agendas.

The Chinese Communist Party is utilizing these entities “to infiltrate American university campuses and engage in espionage, steal intellectual property, intimidate Chinese dissidents, promote communist propaganda, and funnel sensitive information back to the People’s Liberation Army,” said Homeland Security Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Subcommittee Chairman August Pfluger, who is a Republican congressman from Texas. “This bill protects students and universities while ensuring that American dollars are not enabling foreign malign influence.”

Opponents of the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act deny that these entities linked to the Chinese regime pose any national security risk. They argue that most Confucius Institutes in the U.S. have already been shut down in response to increased scrutiny by U.S. officials. However, as The National Association of Scholars reported in June 2022, “the demise of Confucius Institutes has not deterred the Chinese government, which has persuaded American colleges and universities to reopen and rebrand Confucius Institute programs under new names.”

The Chinese regime is simply wrapping its same malign influence on U.S. campuses in new packaging.

Opponents also claim that efforts to curb the Chinese regime’s malign influence are insincere and serve only to fuel anti-Asian hate. This baseless accusation is a replay of group identity grievances that have nothing to do with reality.

American colleges and universities that take Chinese regime money to function as enablers in setting up propaganda, influence, and spying operations on campus do not deserve to receive federal government grants at the same time. Taking such a hardline approach against these enablers signals both wariness of the Chinese regime’s motives and tactics and support for the Chinese people who yearn for freedom.

Another bill that the House passed with scant support from Democrat members is the Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act of 2024. This bill revives a Trump administration program known as the China Initiative, which the Biden-Harris administration discontinued. The number of new economic espionage cases filed following the Biden-Harris administration’s reckless cancellation of the China Initiative declined significantly. Removing the China Initiative’s extra layer of protection has left the United States more vulnerable to theft of trade secrets orchestrated by the Chinese regime or its agents. The Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act of 2024 is intended to fill the enforcement gap that the Biden-Harris administration allowed to grow wider.

The bill provides for the establishment of an initiative within the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to address espionage by the Chinese Communist regime on U.S. intellectual property and academic institutions. According to a summary prepared by the House Committee on the Judiciary, the bill “would focus on identifying and prosecuting individuals engaged in the theft of trade secrets, hacking, and economic espionage, and protecting critical U.S. infrastructure from being compromised based on foreign investment and supply chains.”

Opponents of this bill claim that it would bring back the racial profiling that they allege resulted from the Trump administration’s China Initiative. This again is a tiresome replay of group identity grievances.

The Chinese regime’s threats to U.S. national security are very real and wide ranging. Examples just this year include a former aide to two New York governors acting as an agent for the regime and a Chinese national living in the United States stealing U.S. technology for the benefit of Chinese companies. FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed on September 18 that the FBI had managed to thwart a widespread hacking operation conducted by a Chinese government group that targeted critical infrastructure across the U.S., including at corporations, media organizations, universities, and government agencies. But, as Mr. Wray warned, this was “just one round in a much longer fight,” noting that “The Chinese government is going to continue to target…our critical infrastructure, either by their own hand or concealed through their proxies.”

Most Democrats in the House do not appear ready to commit to do whatever is necessary to stay in the fight for the long haul to neutralize the Chinese regime’s threats against U.S. national security. We know how Donald Trump would handle these threats if he were elected. It would be helpful for voters to know whether or not Kamala Harris would continue the Biden-Harris administration’s soft-on-China policies if she becomes the next president of the United States or take a tougher approach. But that would require a real journalist with integrity to ask her.