Like all totalitarian governments, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can survive only by the suppression of truth and free speech. To that end, the CCP exerts tight control over the flow of information on the Internet in China through the use Internet firewalls. As the U.S. seeks to challenge Chinese dominance, breaking through these firewalls will be of critical importance.
China’s firewall is extensive and sophisticated, blocking not only website content, but engaging in monitoring individuals’ Internet access and web history. China also uses its Internet to spread lies, and to engage in ideological warfare and oppressive censorship. China has weaponized its Internet into a system of mass surveillance, effectively turning it into a repressive information and mind control system.
As the U.S. coalesces around a more robust response to China, confronting their Internet firewall must place a key role. The Secretary of State should use his authority, granted to him by Congress in Sec. 7050 of the State Department’s appropriations act, to partner with the private sector to develop technologies and initiatives aimed at cracking China’s firewall.
The U.S. should also seek to leverage our trade relationship with China to require a freer and more transparent Internet.
China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” has made clear China’s ambitions for control of its people, as well as its intent to undermine the existing liberal international order. We call on Secretary Pompeo to immediately initiate a high priority initiative to rapidly shatter closed society firewalls. We share the view of the late Sen. Tom Coburn that there is “no action the president or Congress can take that can more powerfully, or in a more peaceful fashion, advance global freedom and American national interests.”
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