The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is escalating its aggressive spying efforts in the United States, compromising major cellular network providers and capturing real-time phone call audio and text messages. The breach affects millions of Americans, with the CCP targeting President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, and staffers of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.
The CCP has been operating secret police stations in the US, using them to persecute Americans who challenge the party’s line. The Biden administration has failed to hold the CCP accountable, allowing them to continue their brazen attacks. The CCP’s hacking and espionage demand a strong response, and Congress and the incoming Trump administration must impose escalating costs to deter the CCP.
China’s hacking and espionage tactics have become more sophisticated, with the use of “living off the land” techniques making it harder to detect. The CCP’s targeting of critical infrastructure, including water providers, electric grids, and transportation infrastructure, poses a significant threat to American lives.
The Biden administration’s failure to respond to these attacks has allowed the CCP to continue its aggression. It is time for Congress and the incoming administration to take action, imposing real costs on the CCP that target its core interests. This includes rapidly escalating sanctions against top CCP officials involved in human rights abuses, imposing costs on China’s national economic champions, and exposing the personal fortunes and malign activities of senior CCP officials.
The US must also be unafraid to pursue cyber-enabled options to counter CCP espionage and targeting of critical infrastructure. This includes giving government cyber operators greater latitude to conduct offensive operations and getting the US’s own cyber house in order by fixing the broken cyber threat notification system and incentivizing timely information sharing.