Rep. Lance Gooden Introduces Bill to Re-establish Trump-Era Program Targeting Chinese Espionage

Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) introduced a bill on March 7 to re-establish the China Initiative—a Trump-era program that aimed at countering economic espionage, intellectual property theft, and other threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

This legislationpdf)—called the Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act—is intended to reinstate the China Initiative program, which was terminated by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) in February 2022.

“President Biden has once again put far-left activists ahead of our national security by canceling a DOJ program designed to prevent spying by the CCP on U.S. intellectual property and academic institutions,” Gooden spoke to The Epoch Times Tuesday.

“This soft-on-China approach is emboldening the CCP, and Congress can no longer stand by while President Biden behaves like a puppet of Beijing.”

Gooden’s bill suggests that the program be renamed, The CCP Initiative. It would then be refocused on “identifying and prosecuting those engaged in trade secret theft, hacking, and economic espionage.” The goal is to also “protecting the critical infrastructure in the United States against external threats through foreign direct investment and supply chain compromises.”

China Initiative Program was launched under the former president Donald Trump. The 2018 election of Jeff Sessions, then-attorney général. announced The initiative to fight “the deliberate, systematic, and calculated threats posed, in particular, by the communist regime in China, which is notorious around the world for intellectual property theft.”

According to U.S. Federal Prosecutors’ data, nearly 80 percent all of the economic espionage accusations brought forth by U.S. federal prosecutor include allegations of theft benefiting China. the DOJ. Biden’s inaugural year as president, 2021 saw the DOJ file charges in 15 China-related cases of espionage under the initiative. Chinese intelligence officers, businesspeoplePlease see the following: researchers.

Christopher Wray, FBI Director, said that Christopher Wray opened an FBI counterintelligence case every 12 hours against the Chinese government. He also stated that more than 2000 investigations were being conducted into the Chinese regime’s attempt to steal information. “​​There is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than China,” Wray said At the moment.

The civil rights community has expressed growing concern that the program is encouraging. “a narrative of intolerance and bias,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen Last February, Olsen stated. Olsen claimed the concern expressed by academics and scientists about how the department prosecuted fraud cases that involved research grants. “lead to a chilling atmosphere for scientists and scholars” threatening long-term economic and academic development in the United States.

The DOJ replaced This initiative uses a new, more comprehensive strategy to address threats “from a range of hostile nation-states,” The department is however “will continue to prioritize” Olsen spoke out against threats coming from CCP.

This is not the first time U.S. legislators have enacted measures to restore the China Initiative program. Senator Rick Scott (R.Fla.) made the most recent attempt. announced “five national security focused bills to hold Communist China accountable and better protect American families.”

You will also receive a billpdf) that would “codify the China Initiative and reinstate its effort to prevent spying by the Chinese Communist Party on U.S. intellectual property and U.S. academic institutions.” This legislation was supported by Marco Rubio (R. Fla.) and Senator Bill Hagerty.

Mimi Nguyen Li contributed to the report.