Congress Counters China Influence

September 5, 2024 | Washington, D.C.

by Tabitha Walter, Executive Director, Eagle Forum

This week, the FBI arrested a former aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and her predecessor Gov. Andrew Cuomo on charges of spying for the Chinese government. The former deputy chief of staff and chief diversity officer allegedly received millions of dollars in cash in exchange for providing information and access to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

This is just the latest example of the CCP’s actions to influence our country and its leaders. Thankfully, the House of Representatives already had plans in place to counter some of the most egregious instances of China’s attempted infiltration.

Congress comes back into session next week and must deal with massive legislation to fund the federal government and our military before the election. As the details of those bills get worked out, House Leadership plans to bring up a number of bills tied to China, including legislation that Eagle Forum has been supporting for years to ensure that the Senate is required to vote on any “treaty” that comes out of the Chinese-controlled World Health Organization.

As we have previously reported, the 77th World Health Assembly wrapped up its latest meeting in Geneva on June 1, 2024. While the WHO had hoped to approve two treaties at that meeting, they were only able to agree to a substantial package of amendments to the International Health Regulations. They decided to postpone consideration of the Pandemic Treaty but hope to finish it before the end of the year.

The WHO had to strong-arm consensus for a new version of the International Health Regulations (IHR). Member states submitted over 300 amendments and created a new category of  “pandemic emergencies” that is legally-binding on 196 countries. The WHO, led by China’s handpicked Sec. Gen Tedros Ghebreyesus, violated its own procedures that require member states to be given any amendment language four months in advance and passed the amendments with no debate at the 11th hour.

The pending international pandemic treaty will give the WHO full authority to call a health emergency for any reason. Their goal is to codify the terrible “China Model” that the WHO pushed during COVID to apply to all future “public health emergencies of international concern.” Keep in mind, this involves significantly broadening the definition of “health” to advance their agenda. Anything from global warming to abortion to guns would be considered a health emergency. The China Model involved societal lockdowns, mask mandates, travel restrictions, surveillance, and vaccine mandates. The WHO wants the power to declare similar responses to whatever they deem an “emergency.” In addition, the WHO never held their government accountable for covering up the Wuhan lab leak or for silencing (to the point of death) the doctors who spoke against the government’s actions. Instead, at the World Health Assembly, China was given a seat on WHO’s Executive Board. Clearly, any directive from the WHO will be tainted by communist regimes.

The House is preparing to consider the No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act (H.R. 1425) to ensure our constitutional requirement that the Senate give advice and consent for any treaty to be followed. The sponsor of the bill, Representative Tom Tiffany (R-WI), made this statement upon introduction in March of last year:

“The United Nations-linked World Health Organization is a corrupt organization that President Trump got us out of, but President Biden disgracefully rejoined. The United States should be in charge of our own pandemic policy; we should never outsource that power to an international bureaucracy that behaves like a puppet of Communist China. This legislation puts congressional oversight and transparency into what otherwise could be bad medicine for America’s public health.”

Senate companion bill (S.444) sponsored by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has been sponsored by every Republican Senator. However, H.R. 1425 only has 59 cosponsors. We want to urge our representatives to preserve the Senate’s role in debating international treaties. Contact your U.S. Representative here and ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 1425 and vote for its passage when it comes to the floor.

Opposition to the WHO continues to grow. Just last week, 26 Republican governors joined together to state that they will not comply with the World Health Organization’s attempt at one-world control over health policy. They released a joint statement that reads, in part:

“The World Health Organization is attempting one world control over health policy with their new ‘Pandemic Agreement. . . . Put simply, Republican Governors will not comply.”

In addition, the House will bring up two other bills aimed at curbing China’s influence in the United States.  The first bill, the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act (H.R. 1516), restricts funding to any U.S. college that has a relationship with a CCP-controlled university or Confucius Institute, a cultural institute funded by the Chinese government. Eagle Forum warned about Confucius Institutes here.

The second bill, the Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act (H.R. 1398), will reestablish the China Initiative within the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ). The program was ended in 2022 and this bill brings it back and renames it the CCP Initiative with the goals of countering nation-state threats to the United States; curbing spying by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on U.S. intellectual property and academic institutions; and protecting U.S. critical infrastructure from foreign threats.