Commentary

California, New York, and Illinois are the three biggest U.S. state economies that have not passed laws to defend themselves from China’s malign influence operations.

Why have they not taken action by passing laws like other states, and what are the national security risks?

The threats that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses at the subnational level in the United States require more national-level laws to protect the country from the regime’s influence in locations that refuse to protect themselves.

The CCP purposefully uses its chokehold on China’s imports and exports to influence subnational U.S. government entities. Chinese intelligence and government officials target state, county, and city government officials so that as they rise up in the ranks of government, they already have a history of contact with, and perhaps compromise by, Chinese intelligence services.

Recent research at The Heritage Foundation has identified 11 types of U.S. laws that counter CCP influence. These include laws against foreign influence in the areas of genomic data protection, divestment, education, apps, organ harvesting, sister cities, gifts, transnational repression, property, lobbying, and procurement. Three of America’s top five state economies—California, New York, and Illinois—have passed none of these laws, leaving the nation as vulnerable as a sieve to the CCP’s influence operations.

China’s most successful subnational campaign is arguably in California, which is America’s largest state by GDP at $4.1 trillion. State Governor Gavin Newsom visited Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in October 2023. He signed five memoranda of understanding (MOUs). The trip was the first for a U.S. state governor since 2019, a significant public-relations win for China, as Newsom is a likely U.S. presidential candidate.

Newsom put climate change and better U.S.–China relations front and center during the trip, but he also pursued other goals, including expanding goods trade and tourism with China. The trip arguably served to undermine a unified U.S. negotiating position by allowing the CCP to use its stranglehold on China’s economy to gain influence with California’s government and do an end-run around federal officials to make agreements at the state level.

California is the top target of China’s subnational influence operations because it is by far the largest state economy and has extensive export-controlled technological expertise in the areas of artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and robotics.

In New York, with a GDP of $2.3 trillion, China exerts extensive influence at the national level through its Wall Street connections. At the state level, it allegedly recruited a former senior aide to Governor Kathy Hochul to advance the CCP’s agenda. The charges included visa fraud, alien smuggling, and money laundering. The aide allegedly blocked Taiwan’s access to the governor’s office and removed references to the Uyghurs from official speeches. In exchange, the aide allegedly received millions of dollars’ worth of business.

Chinese hometown associations also influence national, state, and city-level governments, allegedly at the direction of the regime in Beijing. The regime also established a secret police station in New York’s Chinatown that engaged in transnational repression against Chinese nationals.

Illinois has America’s fifth-largest state GDP at $1.1 trillion. In 1974, it became the first state to establish a trade office in Shanghai. China is now the state’s third-largest goods export market. Exports to China gradually made some influential Illinois companies at least in part dependent on China for profits.

The U.S.-China Business Council has developed slick statistics at the state and congressional district level, for all 17 of Illinois’ districts, to show how many “American jobs” are “supported” by exports to China. In the case of Illinois, China exports supposedly support 53,720 jobs. Any political candidates thought to threaten those jobs would face a tougher time at the ballot box.

It should come as no surprise that multiple Illinois politicians, including a former governor, a senator, a sitting congressman, and the mayor of Chicago, have delivered public relations wins for the CCP through their public interactions with regime-linked entities.

Chinese nationals have purchased extensive quantities of land in many states—in one instance, 140,000 acres in Texas—near U.S. military installations for espionage purposes. Laws in 24 states were subsequently put into place in Texas and other states to restrict the ownership of property by foreign nationals, according to the Heritage research. Bans on foreign national land purchases and on the procurement of Chinese goods are the most common laws passed at the state level.

Yet three of America’s most economically powerful states by GDP—California, New York, and Illinois—have no laws to protect their citizens, or America, from the CCP’s malign influence operations. This includes no laws in any of the 11 categories identified in the Heritage research. By pandering to the CCP’s influence in their constituencies and trying to placate the CCP to increase their state’s trade in China, they are making not only their states but the entire nation vulnerable to the world’s most powerful and therefore dangerous authoritarian influence.

The CCP’s ability to do an end-run around the national government and engage directly with subnational entities poses a national security risk that should be addressed through national-level legislation.

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