4 ways America’s states and cities can meet the CCP threat to our way of life

With the 2024 election behind us and the power in Washington, DC, determined, it’s time to shift our collective focus to the biggest external threat to the American way of life: Communist China.

The sheer scale of China’s military and economy, and the relentless determination of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to dethrone America’s global leadership present the United States with a formidable challenge. Although much attention is paid to the Indo-Pacific flashpoints such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, it is a mistake to underestimate the ongoing competition on our soil, where China wants to destroy us from the ground up as it appears from the outside.

Although the federal government is the spearhead of our national defense, provincial and local governments play an important role in protecting the homeland, increasing the ability to resist the CCP’s efforts, and preparing for future conflicts that we hope will never come. In fact, following the election of President Trump in 2016, the CCP used a “subnational” engagement strategy to counter the Trump administration’s agenda through the states, a strategy that continued under President Biden.

As national security adviser, Ambassador O’Brien is informed daily of the CCP’s nefarious domestic activities. Shockingly, Gov. Ducey, the two-term governor of Arizona, has never once been informed about the CCP’s extensive, organized and dangerous state-level activities that threaten our homeland security. This disconnect must end.

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In order to prevent the activities of the CCP, the organizations State Armor and Citizens for Free Enterprise Action conducted a state audit with the help of nearly a dozen of the country’s leading security experts to provide state and local elected officials with guidance to protect our interests.
There are four main directions in which the CCP is making inroads into America at the state and local level. China has a strong focus on our people and institutions, our economic and financial assets, our natural infrastructure, and our key supply chains. Each of these problems requires solutions at the government level that are consistent with government policies.

First, governments must respond to China’s efforts to influence state and local leaders and institutions. The CCP pursues a strategy of “capturing high-ranking people” in their influential activities, seeking to find a flow of people and information that China can use to its advantage.

To begin with, all legal travel to China should end immediately and permanently. States must protect our public campuses from CCP-influencing practices, as Florida reached with comprehensive legislation in 2022 and 2023. “City” agreements with China should be ended, as Indiana did in 2024, to help curb China’s territorial influence.

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Second, states must stop underwriting China’s economy. Americans will be surprised to learn that many of their retirement accounts, including public pension funds, hold large sums of money in Chinese state-controlled companies and defense industry companies. Every Chinese company has been successfully linked by the group under China’s notorious national security laws. It is a stretch to believe that fund managers can manage PRC assets and always abide by their fiduciary duties. States like Tennessee, Indiana and Kansas have banned such investments, and Gov. Greg Abbott recently announced a complete divestment from China.

State leaders should follow the examples of Utah, Idaho and Nebraska and block the inclusion of Chinese technology in government procurement programs for critical technologies such as drones, cars, DNA sequencing machines, computers and telecommunications equipment. The economic benefits of any companies connected to the CCP should be off the table. We should never write off China’s establishment of commercial hubs within our borders.

Third, states must protect their assets and critical infrastructure from China’s use for espionage and sabotage in the future. There is an unprecedented increase in Chinese purchases of agricultural and other land near US military bases and critical infrastructure such as telecommunications, water and electricity.

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The federal government cannot identify all risk-taking activities, leaving states vulnerable if they do not take this responsibility. States like Arkansas, Florida and Texas have taken active steps to keep their land and critical infrastructure out of CCP hands in recent years.

Finally, state leaders should consider the many lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthen their critical infrastructure and supply chains ahead of a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific theater.

China’s outrageously aggressive actions toward Taiwan and the Philippines (a US treaty) could escalate into a conflict that could cause more disruption than a pandemic. There could also be a massive, coordinated cyber attack on the country of origin. Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas are currently conducting a “Pacific conflict stress test” to isolate their state aid supply chains and protect critical infrastructure ahead of the conflict.

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The CCP’s coordinated strategy to infiltrate and destroy US society is not speculation, nor is its military threat to the free world. State and local officials must lead this storm by using their unique powers in our federal system to protect counties and municipalities.

It is past time for CCP influence activities to be ended, to protect state finances and supply chains, and to protect land and critical infrastructure from CCP control. If governments fail to act, we will all be vulnerable to the massive damage the CCP is preparing to unleash on the interests of America and its democratic partners around the world.

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