What’s the impact of Chinese influence operations, how threatening are they to the United States, and how should lawmakers think about U.S. responses?

These were the topics I discussed in my testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which convened on January 30 for a hearing on “The Malign Influence of the People’s Republic of China at Home and Abroad: Recommendations for Policy Makers.”

I argued that while many Chinese public diplomacy activities – like those of other governments – are fairly benign, China does engage in operations that are malign because they are covert (obscuring Chinese government involvement) and illegal (such as cyberespionage and theft, and harassing and coercing U.S. citizens). In my testimony I argued that while the U.S. should defend itself by trying to thwart such operations, U.S. leaders should think beyond playing defense to develop a toolkit for responding more assertively: in order to dissuade China from exceeding the bounds of tolerable behavior.