Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. Was the amendment printed in the Congressional Record?
Mr. McCOLLUM. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
Amendment No. 4 offered by Mr. McCollum:
Page 10, after line 15, insert the following new section:
SEC. 306. REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.
(a) Report to Congress.--Not later than 1 years after the date of the enactment of this Act and annually thereafter, the Director of Central Intelligence and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, jointly, in consultation with the heads of other appropriate Federal agencies, including the National Security Agency, and the Departments of Defense, Justice, Treasury, and State, shall prepare and transmit to the Congress a report on intelligence activities of the People's Republic of China, directed against or affecting the interests of the United States.
(b) Delivery of Report.--The Director of Central Intelligence and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, jointly, shall transmit classified and unclassified versions of the report to the Speaker and minority leader of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives, and the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate.
(c) Contents of Report.--Each report under subsection (a) shall include information concerning the following:
(1) Political, military, and economic espionage.
(2) Intelligence activities designed to gain political influence, including activities undertaken or coordinated by the United Front Works Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
(3) Efforts to gain direct or indirect influence through commercial or noncommercial intermediaries subject to control by the People's Republic of China, including enterprises controlled by the People's Liberation Army.
(4) Disinformation and press manipulation by the People's Republic of China with respect to the United States, including activities undertaken or coordinated by the United Front Works Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
Mr. McCOLLUM (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the Record.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment today, which is a very simple amendment, that would require the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to jointly prepare an annual report on the intelligence activities of the People's Republic of China and, most specifically, those which are directed against or affect the interest of the United States.
Some of the news reports on the fund-raising scandals that we have been reading about recently suggest that the People's Republic of China has apparently has decided to take a more aggressive approach toward influencing American politics. This is occurring at all levels of our political system, through the use of legitimate, such as through lobbying, as well as covert influence.
At the same time, the Chinese are also relying heavily on the success of their economic espionage efforts to make their economy more competitive with ours. We also have concerns, that I think most Americans share, with the increasing buildup of the Chinese military operations and capabilities, and the potential that that poses a threat to our national security interests in the Pacific rim region.
A China specialist at the Department of Defense recently summarized a growing threat posed by China's intelligence agencies by saying:
The Ministry of State Security is an aggressive intelligence service which is coming of age in an international arena. The combination of a relatively stagnant economy and an increasingly competitive global economic environment will force China to rely more heavily on the illegal acquisition of high-technology modernization. Arms production and sales are increasingly being used to gain hard currency and expand global political influence. The MSS will be required to produce intelligence to support this assertive role in the global commercial and political environments.
He went on to say:
Western democracies, such as the United States, must adjust the focus of their clandestine intelligence and counterintelligence operations if they are to meet the MSS's forward posture effectively.
The annual report that this amendment authorizes and requires would document significant developments involving China's Ministry of State Security, the military intelligence department of the People's Liberation Army, and other Chinese intelligence entities operating against the United States.
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The report is specifically intended to cover trends in the following areas: First, political, military, and economic espionage by Chinese intelligence services; second, intelligence activities designed to gain political influence, including activities undertaken or coordinated by the United Front Works Department of the Chinese Communist Party; third, efforts to gain direct or indirect influence through commercial or noncommercial intermediaries subject to control by the People's Republic of China, including enterprises controlled by the People's Liberation Army; and fourth, disinformation and press manipulation by the Government of the People's Republic of China against the United States.
Various agencies from the intelligence and law enforcement communities will be tasked to provide input on Chinese intelligence activities within the United States and elsewhere. Some of the agencies being tasked to contribute to the annual report include the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Department of Justice, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State, and Department of the Treasury.
The classified version of the annual report will be provided to the leadership of both the House and the Senate as well as to the two intelligence oversight committees. An unclassified version will be prepared so that the American people can be provided with a general summary of the nature of the Chinese intelligence threat to the United States.
My colleagues, I believe, will find this amendment to be one that is very crucial and very important, although very simple. It is not one that requires anything more than a gathering of information for us, but I think it is information that is something critical that we have and that it be prepared in these two different versions: First, the classified version for our committee's use primarily; and second, a version which can be revealed to the American public in general terms so we can keep track and the public can keep track of what the Chinese community may or may not be doing with respect to interests of the United States through its intelligence efforts.
I have no more complicated issue than that to present.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, I congratulate my colleague, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], for what I think is a very important addition to the work of the committee. Events have obviously transpired in a very clear way, in a very public and visible way on the subject of China in recent days, and I think this amendment to H.R. 1775 is a very valuable addition.
I would also like to thank the gentleman for his initiative on the issue. The intelligence activities of China that are directed against United States interests is a subject that has caught us all up. It certainly is of central importance to the committee, and it is of concern to the people of the Nation as well.
Anybody who has been watching television, whether it is CNN or any others that are covering events of the world, will know that there is a lot happening. The People's Republic of China has deployed an intelligence service worldwide that is acquiring assets and technology illegally and against the interests of the United States and its businesses and subsidiaries here and overseas.
The gentleman's statement outlines, as well as can be done in this forum, the threat presented by China's Ministry of State, Security and Military Intelligence Department, the People's Liberation Army. The old days of the threat of China goes only so far as its Army can walk are clearly behind us.
The amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] directs that the two agencies in the best position to gather intelligence on the threat, the FBI and CIA, report annually to Congress on the specifics of Chinese intelligence activities and acquisitions that affect United States interests.
What this amendment does is to recognize and to regularize reporting on the threat to America and Americans that we in the committee have received from excellent but ad hoc briefings from these two agencies and others as well, frankly, in the community.
I welcome the gentleman's initiative, as I said, and commend it and look forward to a more structured version of the excellent classified information on this matter that we have received to date from the community. The classified information we have received to date, and I can say this, justifies entirely the initiative presented to us today, in my view.
I referred earlier to a report on proliferation, which is unclassified, which I referred to all Members. I also applaud the gentleman's requirement that the FBI and CIA produce an unclassified version of their annual reports for public dissemination. As I have said, Americans and American businesses and subsidiaries here and overseas should be concerned about this threat from Chinese intelligence activities in the United States and elsewhere. The committee will, in that regard, promote the dissemination of any and all possible warning information as appropriate.
At the same time, Mr. Chairman, it will come as no surprise to anyone at all familiar with intelligence that there will be limits on what the intelligence community will be able to provide the public without damage to the national security or to the sources and methods at risk in the collection. This is a very important target, and it is going to be a more important target, I think, in the next century. Very clearly, we have to be careful about our capabilities to deal with the target.
Acknowledging this constraint, upon which lives as well as intelligence depend, I repeat my wholehearted support to the amendment of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] and look forward to the badly needed process that it does create, in which I serve and which I think will serve oversight extremely well. I am going to support the amendment.
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Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
Mr. DICKS. I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I have no objection to the amendment on this side. In fact, the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] wanted to be here to speak on it, but had to be in a markup in the Committee on Appropriations.
I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I am happy to have the ranking member remind me of that. I should have referred to the Record. The Record will clearly show that the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] has already spoken in support of this amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum].
The amendment was agreed to.