With Capitol Hill buzzing over growing cyberthreats from China, Representative Pat Fallon (R-TX) says he wants to help members of Congress tighten security measures through counterintelligence training and better day-to-day practices.
In April, Rep. Pat Fallon announced his bid for chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This committee oversees a broad selection of issues, but Rep. Fallon said he would use the role to focus the committee more heavily on combatting China’s foreign influence and the threat it poses to the United States’ national security.
Under President Xi Jinping, Rep. Fallon said China has shifted from traditional cultural diplomacy to a more centralized and coordinated strategy for expanding its global influence. Although consolidated power tends to be less efficient, it is still troubling that so much authority is held by one person, he said.
“It’s whatever Xi wants,” Rep. Fallon told Texas Politics. “And so many Americans, because we're so far away, don't realize that Xi has consolidated power more so than any Chinese leader since Mao.”
Rep. Fallon said China’s large population, military power and strong economy position it to have far greater long-term capabilities and resources than any other foreign power.
“We really have never had a geopolitical competitor like China,” he said. “They have four times the people that we have, and they have a pure economy, and that's the difference.”
With these vast resources, Rep. Fallon said China’s capacity to threaten the U.S. has also evolved. He said business is no longer “static” but completely cyber-centric, and these tools make espionage operations cheaper, easier and more effective.
“You get so much bang for your buck, and you can do it in your home country and attack somebody halfway around the world,” he said. “It's going to be cyber, it's going to be AI, it's going to be quantum.”
Rep. Fallon also stressed the growing threat of aerial drones from foreign powers, including China. These emerging technologies will also push competing nations to develop more advanced military and technological capabilities faster than their rivals, he said.
“We might never have an outdoor inauguration again because of the threats from this new technology,” Rep. Fallon said, adding this will also push competing nations to be in a “constant arms race” over who can develop more advanced military and technological capabilities faster.
Despite the great deal of time Congress continues to spend discussing how to combat these foreign threats, Rep. Fallon said he’s noticed that a concerning number of lawmakers lack any sort of counterintelligence training. If appointed chairman of the oversight committee, he said he would prioritize this training for anyone with security clearances.
“We should have done it decades ago,” he said. “They really need to understand you’re a target now.”
He said simple precautions, such as not bringing your phone into an embassy, not accepting random gifts for your office or not taking notes and files into unsecured spaces, can significantly reduce the risk of surveillance or espionage.
“We're taught very little about the fact that this is a nest of spies,” he said. “[There are] upwards of maybe 10,000 trained agents or people that are related to intelligence gathering in this city or in the surrounding area. That's pretty startling.”
Although no member will always perfectly maintain these practices, Rep. Fallon said keeping an active effort to do so is a good place to start.
“We can be irresponsible, but let's try to mitigate that and have a process,” Rep. Fallon said. “You don't represent yourself, you're representing 800,000 constituents and this republic.”
