The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is becoming increasingly brazen in its aggressive eavesdropping in the United States and preparation for cyberattacks on our key infrastructure. The recent revelation that Chinese-sponsored hackers penetrated America’s main cellular network providers should be the final straw. It is time for Congress and the incoming Trump administration to impose rising prices to dissuade the CCP.
According to sources, Chinese state-sponsored cyber attackers infiltrated more than a dozen telecom providers, including America’s major cellular networks, collecting real-time phone call audio and text messages and stealing millions of Americans’ data. Federal officials have defined the CCP targeting operation as a “broad and significant cyber espionage campaign”—one that is still ongoing, as CCP-affiliated actors are still present in our telecommunications networks.
China appears to have targeted President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, and staffers from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. However, the total number of victims remains unclear, and the list of recognized targets grows.
The intrusion of these cellular networks suggests that the data, text messages, and phone calls of many ordinary Americans have been siphoned off for use by our primary foreign opponent, the CCP.
This onslaught on American sovereignty should come as no surprise. For far too long, the CCP has not paid a genuine price for its increasingly aggressive incursions into our country.
For years, the CCP has operated secret police stations in the United States, employing them to prosecute Americans who dared to question the party’s stance.
When China flew a spy balloon across the whole United States, the Biden administration saw and accepted the balloon’s overflight for days — and China paid no diplomatic, economic, or other penalty for the incursion.
A year after the spy balloon fiasco, top cybersecurity officials told Congress that Volt Typhoon, a PRC state-sponsored cyber attacker, had been infiltrating our critical infrastructure for at least five years. This covers the services that Americans rely on every day, such as water suppliers, electric grids, oil and gas pipelines, and transportation infrastructure.
Volt Typhoon’s use of “living off the land” practices represented a shift in China’s tactics, making them more difficult to detect. As a result, Volt Typhoon can interrupt our essential infrastructure at any time, causing havoc across the country and potentially endangering American lives.
In response to each audacious attack, the Biden administration played defense. It is past time to strike back.
The CCP’s surveillance operations will continue until we put real consequences on the Chinese Communist Party, forcing the CCP to think twice before targeting the US.
To send a message of American power, Congress and the incoming administration must respond by imposing growing penalties on the CCP that directly attack the party’s core interests.
Even as it pursues the world’s largest military buildup, the Chinese government continues to spend more on internal security than national defense, indicating the party’s inherent uneasiness about its ability to impose its will on the Chinese people.
Our policy options should address this vulnerability, including rapidly increasing sanctions against top CCP leaders involved in human rights violations, including as the Uyghur genocide. Existing authorities should be used to impose costs on China’s national economic champions, whose accomplishments are deemed critical to the party’s interests. Finally, we should reveal senior CCP leaders’ personal wealth and corrupt practices, and deny visas to their family and associates. These activities may have significant costs that affect future computations.
We must also be willing to pursue cyber-enabled options to combat CCP espionage and critical infrastructure attacks. For example, the President could allow our government’s cyber operators more freedom to conduct offensive operations.
At the same time, the United States must address its own cyber security issues. Our sclerotic cyber threat reporting system is flawed and requires radical reforms to keep up with the speed and size of the expanding threat landscape. We need clear standards for the private sector that encourage rapid information exchange and hold corporations accountable for failing to protect their systems and consumers’ data.
Cybersecurity teams must actively seek out and address the most serious threats to their networks. We also need to enable private sector threat hunters to actively seek intelligence in order to stay ahead of the threat, rather than simply playing whack-a-mole with China’s constant incursion attempts.
Defending America on American soil and in the digital sphere extends beyond fences and legislation. It requires a strategic shift that favors outcomes over containment.
As the threat of CCP aggression grows, it becomes evident that America’s security cannot be based solely on defensive measures. The time has arrived for the Executive Branch to take targeted but decisive actions that impose real consequences on the CCP.
Representative Mark Green, a Republican, is a physician and combat veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, having served three tours. He spent six hours interviewing Saddam Hussein on the night of his capture. He chairs the House Homeland Security Committee and also serves on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.