Exclusive: Chip Roy Introduces ‘Sister City Transparency Act’ to Review Foreign Influence Risks in Local Partnerships

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is pushing legislation that would direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review sister city partnerships operating within the United States, with a focus on transparency, oversight, and foreign communities in countries with significant public sector corruption, including China and Russia.

Roy’s bill, titled the Sister City Transparency Act, would direct the Comptroller General of the United States to study sister city partnerships operating within the United States that involve foreign communities in countries receiving a score of 45 or less on Transparency International’s 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index. 

He is introducing the legislation on Thursday. 

The Comptroller General would have to submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees no later than six months after initiating the study, containing the results of the study, including findings, conclusions, and recommendations, if any. The report may include a classified annex if necessary.

Local governments across the United States maintain roughly 1,800 sister city partnerships with foreign communities worldwide, including 157 with Chinese communities, according to a one-page summary of the bill provided to Breitbart News. The review would focus on partnerships tied to countries with “significant public sector corruption,” including China and Russia.

The one-pager says that while sister city partnerships are “intended to promote cultural exchange and economic cooperation,” they are “increasingly being leveraged by foreign adversaries—particularly the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—to advance strategic interests under the guise of soft diplomacy.” It also says the CCP has demonstrated a pattern of exploiting international partnerships “to expand influence, gather intelligence, and apply political pressure.” 

Rep. Roy exclusively told Breitbart News: “America’s local communities should never be left vulnerable to foreign influence operations masquerading as cultural exchange. The Sister City Transparency Act brings much-needed oversight and accountability to these partnerships, helping ensure they serve the interests of the American people—not the strategic ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party or other foreign adversaries.”

The bill defines a “sister city partnership” as a formal agreement between a United States community and a foreign community that is recognized by Sister Cities International and is operating within the United States. A “United States community” is defined as a state, county, city, or other unit of local government, while a “foreign community” means a subnational unit of government outside the United States.

Under the legislation, the GAO study would identify the criteria by which foreign communities identify American communities as candidates for sister city partnerships, including themes tied to the “prominent economic activities and demographics” of those communities; review activities conducted through those partnerships and their economic and educational outcomes; examine what information is made public about contracts and activities; and evaluate how American communities safeguard freedom of expression and mitigate risks of “foreign espionage and economic coercion.”

The bill would also direct GAO to assess whether the partnerships involve economic arrangements that could make American communities vulnerable to malign market practices or educational arrangements that could diminish freedom of expression, as well as the extent to which such partnerships allow foreign nationals to access local commercial, educational, and political institutions. 

Separately, GAO would review whether foreign communities could use sister city partnerships to pursue “strategic objectives that do not conduce to the economic and national security interests of the United States”; contribute to malign global activity, including “human rights abuses and academic and industrial espionage”; and the extent to which U.S. communities seek to mitigate “foreign nationals’ potentially inappropriate use of visa programs” tied to sister city activities.