Secretary Pompeo warns governors – China is targeting all of us

On Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a blunt warning to the nation’s governors: Beware Chinese influence operations. As he put it, “…Competition with China is not just a federal issue….It’s happening in your states with consequences for our foreign policy, for the citizens that reside in your states, and indeed, for each of you.” 

Mr. Pompeo speculated that many in his audience had probably already been targeted by the Chinese Communist Party. Their respective state’s universities, companies, business development efforts and public employee pension funds have likely been penetrated, and even suborned.

For example, the Committee on the Present Danger: China has recently established that the public employees’ retirement plans of Iowa and New Hampshire hold in portfolio stocks of malevolent Chinese companies. And such companies don’t disclose material risk as American counterparts must. That perilous double-standard must end.

This is Frank Gaffney.