Republicans Call for Action as China Turns US into ‘Hunting Ground’ for Dissidents

The recent indictments of two suspected Chinese agents in California are examples of how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to turn the United States into a “hunting ground” for dissidents, according to Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.).

“I want to be clear about what I think this really means. This is a foreign government that is committing crimes against those that it deems to be a threat, right here on American soil,” Newhouse said.

The two suspected Chinese agents—John Chen from California’s Chino City and Lin Feng from Los Angeles—​​carried out their bribery campaign from January to May this year, according to prosecutors.

According to a court document, Chen characterized one of the Chinese officials the two received “direction” from as someone “that is always in charge of these matters,” during an intercepted phone call. In other words, the unidentified Chinese official could be directly involved in China’s ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, possibly once having a position within the regime’s extralegal body known as the “610 Office.”

The United States “should be a haven from persecution, not what they're trying to turn it into—a hunting ground for an authoritarian government,” Newhouse added.

Newhouse said more and more American people, as well as members of Congress, are “seeing China for what it is” because of the “aggressive actions” that China has undertaken.

Noting that the Chinese police station in New York was reportedly helping Chinese authorities coerce the regime's targets to go back to China, Banks wondered at the time whether the facility had received U.S. approval to establish the premise and stressed there "should be no room for the Chinese government to exercise extraterritorial law enforcement unilaterally on U.S. soil."

He believes that the Biden administration could have acted faster.

“That sort of handwringing has emboldened the Chinese Communist Party and its agents to continue targeting American citizens on U.S. soil,” Banks told The Epoch Times. He urged Congress to push for more U.S. actions on this issue and "confront China’s repression head-on by sanctioning the United Front Work Department and kicking out any Chinese so-called ‘diplomats’ involved in these malign practices.”

China’s “united front” efforts mainly involve overseas operations to persuade organizations or individuals to spread the party’s propaganda in different locales. The executive CCP agency behind these operations is the United Front Work Department (UFWD). Chen, the suspect in the tax bribery case, also has positions in several Chinese united front organizations, such as the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.

“China’s genocidal regime will stop at nothing to harass and intimidate Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, Christians, and Hong Kongers living in exile, even on U.S. soil,” Rubio said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“As continued reports of CCP agents targeting these groups surface," Rubio said, Congress "must address the threat" by passing the bipartisan Transnational Repression Policy Act that he introduced in March, together with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).

U.S. diplomatic personnel and domestic federal employees would also receive training to identify transnational repression under the act, and the U.S. president would need to submit to Congress a list of foreign individuals who should receive sanctions for engaging in such campaigns.