The CCP’s long game includes influencing state lawmakers who may go on to hold national office.
AUSTIN, Texas—Chuck DeVore remembers when the FBI visited him some 17 years ago as a California lawmaker to tell him that he was under surveillance by the Chinese regime.
DeVore, who was backing the Tibet Awareness Day resolution at the time, said the Chinese foreign ministry staff at the San Francisco and Los Angeles consulates launched a full-court press to stop the measure.
The Chinese began visiting California legislators, pressuring them to vote against the resolution. DeVore said he never received a formal visit from the ministry staff, likely because he cowrote the book “China Attacks,” a novel that explores China’s pursuit of annexing Taiwan.
Instead, he found out he was being watched.
“It got so bad that the FBI actually came and visited me and told me that I was under surveillance and asked me if I had been visited yet,” DeVore said during the Texas Policy Summit discussion on China last month in Austin.
He recounted what the FBI told him: “This is unprecedented. We have never seen this before at the state level.”
DeVore, now chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said the Chinese pressure successfully killed the California measure—and Chinese agents have built on that success through the years.
Since then, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has become even more aggressive, organizing protests and intimidation campaigns against state lawmakers who support bills to protect their states from potential Chinese espionage and sabotage, he said.
Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of State Armor, which helps states counter global security threats, told The Epoch Times that 19 states have successfully passed legislation to stop foreign adversaries from buying agricultural land. Some have also limited purchases of land near military installations or sensitive infrastructure.
Some states are going further by introducing the Pacific Conflict Stress Test Act legislation—which seeks ways to strengthen supply chains, cybersecurity, telecommunications, and public health in case of a conflict involving China.
