Sec. 161. Findings on Chinese information warfare and malign influence operations
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Congress makes the following findings: In the report to Congress required under section 1261(b) of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 ( Public Law 115–232 ), the President laid out a broad range of malign activities conducted by the Government of China and its agents and entities, including— propaganda and disinformation, in which Beijing communicates its narrative through state-run television, print, radio, and online organizations whose presence is proliferating in the United States and around the world ; malign political influence operations, in which front organizations and agents which target businesses, universities, think tanks, scholars, journalists, and local state and Federal officials in the United States and around the world, attempting to influence discourse ; and malign financial influence operations, characterized as misappropriation of technology and intellectual property, failure to appropriately disclose relationships with foreign government sponsored entities, breaches of contract and confidentiality, and manipulation of processes for fair and merit-based allocation of Federal research and development funding .
Chinese information warfare and malign influence operations are ongoing. In January 2019, the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, stated, China will continue to use legal, political, and economic levers—such as the lure of Chinese markets—to shape the information environment. It is also capable of using cyber attacks against systems in the United States to censor or suppress viewpoints it deems politically sensitive. . In February 2020, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray, testified to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives that the People’s Republic of China has very active maligned foreign influence efforts in this country, with the goal of trying to shift our policy and our public opinion to be more pro-China on a variety of issues .
The People’s Republic of China’s information warfare and malign influence operations continue to adopt new tactics and evolve in sophistication. In May 2020, the Special Envoy and Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), Lea Gabrielle, stated that there was a convergence of Russian and Chinese narratives surrounding COVID–19 and that the GEC had uncovered a new network of inauthentic Twitter accounts that it assessed was created with the intent to amplify Chinese propaganda and disinformation.
In June 2020, Google reported that Chinese hackers attempted to access email accounts of the campaign staff of a presidential candidate. Chinese information warfare and malign influence operations are a threat to the national security, democracy and the economic systems of the United States, its allies and partners. In October 2018, Vice President Mike Pence warned that Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States. .
In February 2018, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray, testified to the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate that the People’s Republic of China is taking advantage of and exploiting the open research and development environments of U.S. institutions of higher education to utilize professors, scientists and students as nontraditional collectors of information. The President shall— carry out all appropriate measures to protect our democratic institutions and processes from malign influence from the People’s Republic of China and other foreign adversaries; and consistent with the policy specified in paragraph (1), direct the heads of the appropriate Federal departments and agencies to implement Acts of Congress to counter and deter Chinese and other foreign information warfare and malign influence operations without delay, including— section 1043 of the John S.
McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 ( Public Law 115–232 ), which authorizes a coordinator position within the National Security Council for countering malign foreign influence operations and campaigns; section 228 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 ( Public Law 116–92 ), which authorizes additional research of foreign malign influence operations on social media platforms; section 847 of such Act, which requires the Secretary of Defense to modify contracting regulations regarding vetting for foreign ownership, control and influence in order to mitigate risks from malign foreign influence; section 1239 of such Act, which requires an update of the comprehensive strategy to counter the threat of malign influence to include the People’s Republic of China; section 5323 of such Act, which authorizes the Director of National Intelligence to facilitate the establishment of Social Media Data and Threat Analysis Center to detect and study information warfare and malign influence operations across social media platforms; and section 119C of the National Security Act of 1947 ( 50 U.S.C. 3059 ), which authorizes the establishment of a Foreign Malign Influence Response Center inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
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Sec. 161
Findings on Chinese information warfare and malign influence operations
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