Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) on Sunday warned that China is stealing intellectual property and operating “a massive spy ring” within institutions across the United States as he blasted the Biden administration for failing to take a tougher stance on the country’s communist regime.
During an appearance on ABC News’s “This Week,” the chair of the House Oversight Committee labeled the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as “a problem,” arguing that the regime continues to steal “hard-earned research and development.”
“They continue to steal our patents. They manipulate their currency,” Comer said. “We believe they have a big footprint in academia with a massive spy ring within our research universities where they continue to steal our hard-earned research and development.”
“So, China’s a problem. And this administration thus far hasn’t set a very good example of standing up to China,” he continued. “I think that, you know, shooting the balloon down in the Atlantic once it flew over all the military bases, including my own Fort Campbell, Kentucky, it’s very disturbing.”
The lawmaker’s comment follows weeks of international fallout after China flew a spy balloon over the United States, which was ultimately shot down near the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, a week after it was first spotted over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
Comer noted that he’s glad the Biden administration took it “more seriously with respect to the balloons,” but he believes the nation is facing “a whole lot bigger” problem in relation to CCP surveillance than just the spy balloon that recently entered into U.S. airspace.
“We’ve got a whole lot bigger problem with China than the spy balloons,” he argued, explaining that the communist regime’s military “continues to grow and expand.”
“They’re continuing their—their Belt and Road Initiative all over the world where they’re trying to create a dominant world economy. This is a problem for the United States. And we need an administration to stand firm to China,” he said.
Since the Feb. 4 incident when the U.S. military shot down the spy balloon, the Pentagon confirmed three other aircraft were shot down after entering U.S. and Canadian airspace in the past week.
On Sunday, the Pentagon said that President Joe Biden acted on guidance from military officials to shoot down an object flying near Lake Huron, Michigan, and also confirmed that it transited near sensitive military sites.
Sunday’s downing of the object—which was likely the same one that was picked up on radar in Montana on Saturday—came after U.S. military planes shot down two other objects on Friday and Saturday. One object was shot down by an F-22 Raptor in northern Alaska, above the Arctic Circle, while the other was shot down by a similar jet in Yukon Territory, Canada, located adjacent to Alaska.
Like the Lake Huron incident, few details about those objects have been provided by the Pentagon so far. There have been no updates about the recovery efforts for either as of Monday morning.
CCP Surveillance ‘Not Limited to Balloons’
During Sunday’s “This Week” interview, Comer also addressed an internal investigation that revealed ByteDance—a Chinese company that owns TikTok—reportedly used the corporation’s access to user data to improperly track unsuspecting American populace.
“TikTok executives testified in Congress a year or two ago that none of the data that TikTok collected ever left the United States. But what we’ve learned from—from whistle-blowers and media accounts is some of that data did, in fact, go back to China and that’s a concern,” Comer said.
“It’s a concern for high-level people in the government because with that data, ByteDance can—can tell where you are if you are using TikTok,” he added. “So, that would be a concern if we continue to see escalation [between] China and the United States. We certainly don’t want the Chinese bad guys to know where our public officials are. And that’s why you’re seeing more state governments ban TikTok. And I think that’s going to continue a trend.”
Bipartisan legislation to ban the social media giant from the United States has recently gained momentum in Congress following the incursion of the Chinese spy balloon.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who originally introduced the legislation in December, reintroduced the bill titled “Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act,” or “ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act,” with bipartisan support this month.
Rubio explained that it was vital the United States work quickly to prevent the CCP from stealing more Americans’ data and further undermining U.S. national security.
CCP law dictates that all companies in China, including ByteDance, must make their data available to the regime on request, and the company’s access to TikTok user data has sparked significant security concerns.
Epoch Times reporter Jack Phillips contributed to this report.