Comer: Federal Government Lacks Cohesive Strategy to Combat the CCP’s Political Warfare and Influence Operation

WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today delivered opening remarks at a hearing titled “Defending America from the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Warfare, Part III.” The Committee’s government-wide investigation has outlined how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waging an influence and infiltration campaign that threatens key U.S. economic industries and federal government agencies. To date, the Committee has conducted oversight of 25 federal agencies, revealing the federal government is dangerously behind in implementing measures to combat the CCP’s tactics. In his opening statement, Chairman Comer emphasizes federal agencies have left Americans, including our own elected officials, vulnerable to CCP political warfare and have failed to provide a cohesive strategy to address these ongoing threats by China. He concluded that today’s hearing is an opportunity to discuss what federal agencies should be doing to change course and secure America from the CCP and its destructive global ambitions.

Below are Chairman Comer’s remarks as prepared.

This hearing is the third in the Oversight Committee’s investigation into the federal government’s response to the Chinese Communist Party’s use of a strategy known as political warfare. 

The CCP employs this strategy to infiltrate and influence communities and critical sectors across the nation. The CCP’s ultimate goal is to weaken and destroy its “main enemy,” which the Party has identified as America. 

The Committee has conducted oversight of 25 sectors of the federal government to understand if a “whole-of-government” approach to the CCP threat is sufficient or even in existence. 

Consulting with experts from the U.S. government, military, and private sector—and holding briefings with 23 federal agencies—the Committee has found that the CCP is waging a “war without weapons” against America. And the Biden-Harris Administration has no government-wide strategy to combat CCP warfare.  

By any reasonable analysis, the United States faces a new cold war, but right now, only its opponent—the CCP—is committed to winning it. 

Unlike the first Cold War, the adversary is already within—having entrenched itself within U.S. borders, institutions, businesses, universities, and cultural centers—by capturing elites in influential circles. 

Without a cohesive government strategy, the agencies the Committee has surveyed have been left to formulate their own solutions—which are diverse and largely ineffective.

Simply put, too many federal agencies have failed to understand, acknowledge, and combat CCP political warfare. Sometimes this is because the agencies themselves have succumbed to CCP influence operations seeking to shape U.S. decision-making to the Party’s benefit.

It is essential that federal agencies understand what the CCP is—a totalitarian force that enslaves its own people; surveils and harasses critics of the Party and people of Chinese descent around the world; and poisons tens of thousands of Americans every year with fentanyl. Under General Secretary Xi Jinping, this regime is waging unrestricted warfare against our country. 

Congress alerted federal agencies of this threat 25 years ago. Yet in 2024, the CCP’s tactics still pose extraordinary danger to the American way of life—while the U.S. government and its agencies, departments, and commissions have not engaged the CCP threat with urgency. 

In the Committee’s previous hearings in this investigation, it is notable that both Republican and Democrat witnesses who have testified have recognized CCP political warfare as a serious threat to American society.

Today, our witnesses will testify about what federal agencies should be doing to change course and secure America from the CCP and its destructive global ambitions. 

The stakes are high, and federal officials must start listening to the message the witnesses here today have to deliver.

The federal government has great responsibilities to confront communist China. 

First, federal leaders must be willing to talk about the CCP and the warfare it is waging against America.  Transparent communication is critical to an effective deterrence strategy. 

Next, the strategy must be government-wide. The CCP is targeting every corner of this country, and all federal agencies have duties to fight back against it.  

Federal officials should reject mixed-messaging and appeasement. That means federal agencies must put an end to so-called “country neutral” approaches doomed to fail the American people.  Instead, officials should employ targeted strategies to identify, counter, and deter the CCP’s unique methods and strategies such as the united front and elite capture.    

Additionally, the Intelligence Community should not hide behind the classification system.  This investigation has made clear that there is plenty of open-source information available demonstrating CCP infiltration operations. It is inexcusable for federal officials to neglect their responsibilities to openly communicate about threats to the public.

Also, federal leaders must resist influence within their own ranks. The CCP actively wages psychological warfare to influence decision-making and how officials carry out their responsibilities.

For example, federal agencies should reject the lie that it is racist to criticize the CCP. America’s adversary is the Chinese Communist Party—not the Chinese people, who are victims themselves of the regime.

Finally, in the face of the cold war the CCP is waging, federal agencies should fulfill their responsibilities to the American people. Federal officials should use their platforms and authorities to equip America to strengthen their communities and create the new technologies that will secure a strong future for the nation.

Today, federal agencies are ill-prepared to face the CCP threat. A government-wide strategy is decades overdue.  The American people deserve better from their government—and I hope that federal officials will listen to the constructive recommendations offered today.

I thank the witnesses for appearing today and look forward to their testimony.

I now yield to Ranking Member Raskin for his opening remarks.