Thursday, in an interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) argued the Biden administration’s silence about an “online covert influence operation” from the Chinese government on social media was a product of its fear of provoking the Chinese Communist Party.
“Biden is trying to revive diplomatic and economic engagement with China as the core pillar of his strategy,” he said. “Despite this approach, having failed for over two decades. Perhaps it’s an effort just to cool temperatures going into the election. He doesn’t want to see any economic downturn or certainly doesn’t. They’re constantly afraid of provoking the Chinese Communist Party, forgetting that Marxist-Leninist regimes view concessions like this as appeasement and actually get more aggressive.
“And we need to maintain the economic and diplomatic and conventional military pressure on them,” Gallagher continued. “One point on the Meta story, so this is what the Chinese were trying to do via Meta, but imagine the influence that they already have via a CCP-controlled app like TikTok. This should open our eyes to the danger of allowing TikTok to become even more dominant, perhaps the most dominant media platform in the country.”
“And I know that certain legislators are afraid to do anything on this issue,” he added. “But we have to step up on both these issues. We have to put controls and guardrails on the U.S. Capitol going to China, as well as figure out how to prevent TikTok, a CCP-controlled app, from becoming the dominant media company in America.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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