I have warned for years that the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to infiltrate American society and government at every level.
Our nation's security and sovereignty depend on our ability to counter this threat.
That was exactly the message I delivered to the National Governors Association (chaired by then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo) in 2020 as Secretary of State.
Neither Mr. Cuomo nor his successor, Governor Hookle, appear to have taken my warning seriously.
This week, Linda Sun, a former aide in both governors' offices, was indicted on charges of acting as an agent of the Chinese Communist Party.
The unsealed indictment alleges that Sun and her husband laundered millions of dollars from the Chinese Communist Party and, in return, “worked to advance the interests of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party.”
Sun has engaged in numerous acts of treason, including blocking Taiwanese authorities from contacting the governor's office since 2016, ensuring that the content of his speeches and press releases conformed to CCP-approved language, allowing CCP officials to participate in senior state government discussions such as COVID-19 response, and even personally participating, as a New York state official, in CCP-sponsored protests against Taiwan's democratically elected president who was visiting New York City.
These details may be shocking to some, but this is exactly how the Chinese Communist Party operates: Beijing seeks to influence every level of society, from the federal government to universities, state legislatures, and even PTA meetings.
This threat cannot be treated as something far away, across vast oceans. The Chinese Communist Party is inside its gates.
I saw this firsthand when I served as Secretary of State in the Trump Administration.
Confucius Institutes have proliferated on university campuses across China, spreading Communist Party propaganda to the younger generations.
We have largely thwarted this by designating Confucius Institute programs as foreign missions, but our success has only scratched the surface in combating Beijing's influence operations on our campuses.
We gave a similar designation to the National Association for the Peaceful Reunification of China, an organization within the Chinese Communist Party-controlled United Front Work Department that coordinates “sister city” programs with major metropolitan areas in the United States and around the world.
We also shut down the largest espionage operation in American history by closing the Chinese Communist Party's Houston consulate, where Chinese Communist Party operatives had coordinated a massive campaign of industrial espionage and intellectual property theft.
Sleeping at work
This effort to protect America from Chinese Communist Party infiltration has been woefully ignored by the Biden-Harris Administration.
Earlier last year, a Chinese spy balloon was allowed to cross the continental US but was ultimately shot down off the coast of South Carolina.
The Biden-Harris Administration has failed to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.
Inexplicably, the Biden-Harris administration also halted the China Initiative, a counterespionage program launched under the Trump administration that focused exclusively on the Chinese Communist Party's malign activities.
And our open southern border has allowed tens of thousands of Chinese nationals, many of them men of military age, to enter our country illegally with no real safeguards.
Last year, Biden welcomed Chinese Communist Chairman Xi Jinping with open arms in San Francisco, treating him like a conquering king.
We now know that in the days before and after that meeting, Chinese diplomats worked with pro-Communist Party diaspora groups in the United States to intimidate, harass, and silence Americans protesting Xi Jinping's policies, many of whom were first-, second-, and third-generation Chinese American immigrants who know better than anyone just how evil the Chinese Communist Party really is.
As for Kamala Harris, you could count on one hand the number of times she mentioned the Chinese Communist Party during her campaign.
She dares not say anything bad about China.
Americans should ask why.
The truth is that Biden, Harris, Hawkle and other progressive leaders who dominate the left are living in a fantasy world.
They believe that relations between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party should be based on mutual understanding, fair competition, and cooperation on issues like climate change.
This is a dangerous delusion that gives the Chinese Communist Party ample room to infiltrate government and society.
America will only be safe if our relationship with China is centered on transparency and reciprocity, with an understanding of the Chinese Communist Party's ideological hostility toward America.
If American companies can't buy land in China adjacent to Chinese military bases, then we shouldn't let that happen in the United States either.
If American companies must agree to technology transfer and surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party to do business in China, then it shouldn't be much easier for Chinese companies to do business here.
If our diplomats cannot communicate freely and privately with the Chinese people, we should never tolerate Chinese Communist Party officials doing the same to American citizens.
The list goes on and on.
We are opening the door to our enemies. This must stop. And it will only stop by electing leaders at all levels of government, including Donald Trump, who clearly recognize this threat and will keep America free and safe.
Mike Pompeo served as U.S. Secretary of State from 2018 to 2021.
