Chairman Gallagher's Remarks on CCP Transnational Repression at the CCP's Police Station in New York City

Click HERE for full remarks.

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Thank you all for coming out here early on a Saturday morning in the freezing February cold. 

That innocent-looking building over there housed an unauthorized, secret police station linked to the Chinese Communist Party. The non-profit Safeguard Defenders discovered over 100 of these illegal police stations around the world, including at least two more in the United States. They’re connected to Operation Fox Hunt and the CCP’s campaign of transnational repression- a terrifying threat to Chinese-Americans, other CCP targets, and to American sovereignty itself. 

“If you are willing to go back to mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be alright.” 

“Post more, I will chop your bastard hands off”

“Two options: return to China promptly, or commit suicide”

“These are actual quotes CCP agents have said to people here on American soil, according to the Department of Justice and FBI investigations. To say nothing of physical violence, surveillance of children, and imprisonment of family members that some American citizens have faced. One Chinese-American citizen was even detained against her will in China for eight months while she was pregnant. 

I've spoken to dozens of dissidents from China and human rights activists. It’s rare to find one who hasn't experienced at least low-level digital harassment from CCP agents. I’m sure many of you here today have. How have we allowed this to happen? 

The answer is that we’ve been blind while the CCP has been very cunning. Their threats are often hard to prosecute because they are veiled. Nice family you’ve got there, be a shame if something happened to them.It’s a Mafia like threat because the CCP acts like the Mafia. They buy off politicians, multinational organizations, companies, and the law enforcement. They use muscle and threats instead of persuasion. And, like the mafia, they aren’t afraid to make people disappear. 

There’s one important difference. Unlike the mafia, the CCP has a much more powerful arsenal at their disposal to  back up their strong-arm intimidation tactics- advanced technology, weaponry, and artificial intelligence. They’re using a terrifying version of Orwellain techno- totalitarian surveillance to inflict total totalitarian control on the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. On Tibetans. And, during the Zero-Covid lockdowns, on citizens throughout China. Now they want to export that repression around the world. The only thing standing in their way is our will to defend our values. 

We must stand up, push back, and protect our citizens and the many- reformers, freedom fighters, and asylum seekers, many of whom I see here today- who have taken refuge here in the United States. We cannot allow the threat they have fled to follow them to our shores here in America. 

The FBI Director recently testified that the FBI was opening a new CCP investigation “every ten hours.”... We in Congress need to make sure the FBI has training and the resources to deal with this threat. Not just at FBI headquarters in DC but at every field office around the country. And it can’t just be federal law enforcement. Local police need to be trained on this as well. If a victim is brave enough to come forward, no repressive act orchestrated by a foreign government should ever fall on deaf ears. That is a basic promise we make to everyone in the United States no matter their background. 

Together, we will end this transnational oppression, we will end this ugly affront to our sovereignty, and we will make sure that the United States is a haven from persecution, not a hunting ground for authoritarians.