House Committee Chair Warns of Chinese Intelligence Operations in US

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) speaks during a House subcommittee hearing in Washington on July 18, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) is warning about the extensive operations of China’s intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), in the United States, which he said is “far larger” than the CIA.

Mr. Gallagher, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), told Fox News on Aug. 4 that many Americans lack awareness of the presence of the MSS.

The MSS is known to be China’s main intelligence gathering and anti-spying agency, which also functions as “a kind of domestic secret police within China,” the Republican lawmaker said.

“It’s far larger than the CIA [and] is operating widely within the United States,” he added.

The MSS doesn’t have a public website that details its activities. However, it did establish an account on the Chinese social messaging app WeChat and has published a post urging people to participate in counterespionage efforts.

The agency’s call to popularize anti-spying work among the masses follows an expansion of China’s counterespionage law that took effect in July.

The law, which bans the transfer of information related to national security and interests that it doesn’t specify, has alarmed the United States, which says foreign companies in China could be punished for regular business activities.

‘We Let Our Guard Down’

Mr. Gallagher urged the raising of awareness among Americans about the nature of threats posed by the CCP within the United States. He said that China has attempted to steal sensitive agricultural intellectual property.

The FBI estimates that China steals $225 billion to $600 billion worth of U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets every year, Mr. Gallagher said.

“I think it’s fair to say that we let our guard down. For the last two decades, we got complacent, and we slowly, far too slowly, woke up to the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party,” he added.

He noted the arrest of two U.S. Navy service members accused of transmitting sensitive military information to China. One of them allegedly sent photos, videos, and documents concerning U.S. Navy ships and their systems to a Chinese intelligence officer.

The second service member is alleged to have sent nonpublic and controlled operational plans for a large-scale U.S. military exercise in the Indo–Pacific region to a Chinese intelligence officer, according to the Department of Justice.

Mr. Gallagher expressed his dismay over U.S. service members betraying their oaths.

“We don’t have an official battle damage assessment yet, but it could be incredibly damaging, particularly as the risk of a conflict with China over Taiwan ... increases,” he said.

“There’s no doubt they’re trying to do everything that they can to steal sensitive information and then weaponize that against us.”

Taiwan is facing a constant threat of invasion from China, which sees the self-ruled island as a part of its territory. In recent years, the threat comes in the form of China often sending military jets into the island’s air defense identification zone.

Prior to the interview, Mr. Gallagher, along with Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) of the House Select Committee on the CCP, hosted a roundtable discussion on the CCP’s agricultural technology theft.

During the discussion, Mr. Gallagher warned that agricultural technology theft is just one facet of the CCP’s “much larger, country-wide, slow motion heist of American intellectual property.”

“The CCP has long worked to undermine American agriculture and dominate the global food supply—whether it’s stealing valuable seeds directly from the ground, quietly buying up our farmland, or through their deceptive trade practices,” he said.

“Former NSA Director Keith Alexander called China’s technology theft possibly ’the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.'”

Reuters and Alex Wu contributed to this report.