The enemy within: Time to unmask the Chinese masqueraders preying on Americans

As secretary of state, I often emphasized that the risk posed to America by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not only abroad, in places like Taiwan or South Korea, but also here at home – in places like Des Moines, Wichita and Tallahassee. 

The CCP operates propaganda operations across the U.S. to influence everyone from governors to PTA members. Chinese entities have bought up farmland next to at least 19 U.S. military bases, and CCP spies are working constantly to infiltrate American businesses to steal their IP. 

Another threat Americans may not be aware of is happening before their very eyes, with Chinese-owned companies frequently masquerading as American to hide in plain sight. 

Chinese-owned companies can be found in just about every industry across the American economy, from semiconductors to drones to power tools, and they are gaining a leg up by presenting themselves as American-owned to avoid the teeth of U.S. national security laws. 

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At the same time, they are leveraging the advantages afforded by their state-controlled and supported country of origin, such as commercial assistance from the CCP, lax cyber and data privacy protections, disregard for human rights, and the use of stolen intellectual property. 

Some of these perpetrators are well known. Take TikTok. The company has undertaken a sustained rebranding effort in the U.S. to distance itself from its China-based parent ByteDance and cloud the very real threat of a Chinese company owning Americans’ private data. Others are lower profile, such as Chinese drone maker DJI, which recently licensed its software to a U.S.-based entity to evade U.S. restrictions on Chinese drones and avoid legal compliance. 

And then there’s Milwaukee Tool, which – using the name of the very city where the Republican National Convention was recently held – passes itself off as an American brand but is actually owned by a Chinese company that is suspected by U.S. customs authorities of using slave labor.

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Make no mistake: the data and information harvested by these Chinese entities are being used to bolster Chinese interests, which extend to surveillance, IP theft, unauthorized data collection, and even infiltration of U.S. military construction sites and bases. 

In addition to these national security concerns, their masquerading can have implications for U.S. economic policy, as these companies gain a competitive advantage by being propped up by CCP investments at the expense of unsuspecting U.S. consumers, who are tricked into believing they are "buying American."

What can and should be done about this? In the long run, we must embrace a broad set of policies focused around the same core principle we championed in the Trump administration: reciprocity.

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If American entities cannot buy land in China next to a Chinese military base, we should not allow it to happen here. If American firms must consent to technology transfers and CCP overwatch to do business in China, it should not be so easy for Chinese firms to do business here.

These changes will take time – but here are more concrete steps we can take right now:

Investigate the Masqueraders: Congress has the power to investigate the actions and practices of Chinese-headquartered companies to limit the economic, intelligence and national security consequences of masquerading.

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"Unmask" the Culprits: A recent Edelman survey indicated that nearly half of U.S. consumers are averse to a foreign brand if they have concerns about that country’s government. Why is it, then, that we allow Chinese companies to masquerade as American? Any technology platform or product with an on-off switch that is produced by a Chinese-headquartered company should be labeled as such. 

We have become accustomed to reading labels for nearly everything in our country – from calorie counts on menus to ingredients on a box of cereal. We should have the same visibility into whether an application on our phone, a power tool at the hardware store, or electric vehicle in a car lot is truly American. 

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Stop Incentivizing Chinese FDI In America: As I made clear many times as secretary of state, the challenge posed by the CCP is not only the province of the federal government; individual states have a role to play as well. All state attorneys general have a duty to protect their citizens and prevent state resources from supporting Chinese investment in the U.S. If a Chinese company acquires a U.S. company and pretends to operate it as such, it should be barred from accessing the tax incentives, development credits, and all other state-level economic assistance normally made available for businesses.

It's time to pull off the mask and reveal the companies who have submitted themselves to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party. They should not be allowed to enrich and empower America’s chief adversary while lying to the American people. Instead, we should put an end to their masquerade and its threat our national and economic security.

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