DHS Official: CCP Poses ‘Grave Threat’ to US Homeland

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is actively working to undermine U.S. security and damage U.S. economic standing, according to Iranga Kahangama, assistant DHS secretary for cyber, infrastructure, risk, and resilience. The CCP seeks to leverage the whole of the Chinese nation against the United States, presenting an especially grave threat to the homeland.

Whole-of-Nation Defense Needed

Kahangama said the CCP regime “operates globally” and is “using all instruments of national power to target the United States” in its quest for global hegemony. The United States must mobilize a whole-of-nation defense against such aggression, he said. The methods employed by the regime to undermine U.S. influence are just too varied to warrant any other response.

CCP Is ‘Trying to Undermine’ US

Subcommittee Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) painted the growing competition between the CCP and the United States as one between democratic norms and values and rampant authoritarianism. The CCP’s overarching goal isn’t merely to do better economically than the United States, but to destroy the very foundations of the republic as a whole and to dismantle the international system built upon those foundations.

“This conflict is not with the individual citizens of [China],” Pfluger said. “This conflict is with the CCP, an authoritarian regime that commits genocide against its own people, censors free speech across the globe, and aims to end democracy as we know it.”

CCP Seeks to Infiltrate and Influence

The CCP seeks to infiltrate and influence state and local governments to compel the United States to adopt policies that favor China from the ground up. The ranking Democrat member Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) concurred, saying that the CCP is aiming to systematically destroy the United States’ economic advantage through illicit means.

Whole-of-Government Response Needed

“Beijing presents an especially grave threat to the homeland,” Kahangama said. “We must match our adversaries’ determination through a whole-of-government response, with DHS playing a leading role on the front lines of that defense every day.”

CCP’s Economic Espionage

Magaziner said, “Each year, the CCP’s economic espionage against American business costs between $225 billion and 600 billion. It is indisputable … that the CCP is actively trying to undermine the economy and security of the United States. More alarming, the intellectual property stolen by the CCP [does] not just include commercial.”

Conclusion

The CCP’s global operations and use of all instruments of national power to target the United States pose a unique threat to the U.S. homeland. A whole-of-nation defense is needed to counter such aggression, with DHS playing a leading role on the front lines of that defense every day.