With growing threats to higher education and state government, Wisconsin Republicans have a plan to put the Badger State at the forefront of combating Chinese Communist Party influence.
Five Wisconsin Republicans unveiled a series of bills this week to keep CCP influence out of state government and institutions of higher education. If the legislative package is passed, national security experts say that Wisconsin would become a state leader in combating China.
“We can all agree and should be able to rally around the fact that we should not be supporting or doing anything to support organizations, such as the Chinese Communist Party, that seek to undermine the foundational things that make America exceptional,” Senator Patrick Testin told The Daily Wire.
The bills would block partnerships between the University of Wisconsin system and China, prevent state agencies from contracting with companies controlled by China, ban critical telecommunication companies from using equipment manufactured by foreign adversaries, crack down on transnational repression, target illegal organ harvesting, and protect genetic data from countries like China.
The lawmakers behind the legislative package include Testin, Senator Cory Tomczyk, Representative Daniel Knodl, Representative Clint Moses, and Representative Alex Dallman.
Testin said that the CCP wants “to embed themselves in every element and sector” to “essentially extend their tentacles and their influence.”
The higher education bill would ban the University of Wisconsin from entering into “a collaboration agreement, academic partnership, or research partnership with a college or university based in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, or Qatar,” according to a draft shared with The Daily Wire.
There would be an exception if a federal law enforcement agency performs a national security assessment.
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A recent House report listed over a dozen Pentagon grants to the university worth tens of millions of dollars that raised concerns over links to China. The university also has relationships with Southeast University in Nanjing and Nanjing University, both of which have been assessed to have medium to high risk in terms of Chinese defense ties.
Another bill would stop state agencies from contracting with organizations that are headquartered in certain countries, like China, or are controlled or majority-owned by the Chinese government or the CCP.
A third bill would prohibit “telecommunications providers from purchasing, renting, leasing, obtaining, or maintaining critical telecommunications infrastructure that includes equipment manufactured by a foreign principal of a foreign adversary.”
Another bill aims to protect the genetic data of Americans. It would ban “the use of genetic software from foreign adversaries in medical and research facilities, the storage of any human genome sequencing data within the borders of a foreign adversary.”
State Rep. Clint Moses told The Daily Wire that the intent of that legislation was to ensure that genetic data was not being used for biological warfare or other “nefarious” purposes.
Another measure part of the package would prohibit “coverage of organ transplantation and related care under health insurance policies and the Medical Assistance program if the organ is transplanted in or originates from a country known to have participated in forced organ harvesting.”
There are between 25,000 and 50,000 people in China every year whose organs are harvested against their will, according to some estimates.
“When you start looking at what some of these countries are doing, particularly in China, where they’re getting organs for transplant usage, obviously from inmates, prisoners,” Moses said. “I think, [Americans] would find that absolutely shocking and atrocious, because it’s a humanitarian issue. It’s a crime against humanity.”
The final bill in the package would give more teeth to law enforcement in punishing those engaging in transnational repression. Other bills aiming to prevent foreign adversaries from owning land in Wisconsin and to keep Chinese software off state devices are also working their way through the legislature.
Michael Lucci, the founder of the national security advocacy group State Armor, said that Wisconsin would become the model in the Midwest for targeting China if all of the proposals pass. He said states need to take increasingly strong action to safeguard themselves.
“Over time, the breadth and scale of the threat has become more apparent and it has grown. It’s become clear it’s quite large,” he told The Daily Wire. “Therefore, the American response, which is both federal and state, needs to expand and become more forceful.”