(Minghui.org) On November 18 and 19, Texas governor Greg Abbott issued three executive orders in the state to protect Texans from the overseas influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The three executive orders—GA-47, GA-48, and GA-49—reference several specific cases of the CCP’s increasing infringement on the rights of American citizens, the CCP’s deep infiltration into the American governmental apparatus, and the tangible threat the CCP poses to the United States’ critical infrastructure as a foreign adversary of the United States. Each order outlines a concrete plan of action to be taken by the Texas state government to counter the CCP in each of these arenas.
The first of Governor Abbott’s executive orders against CCP actions, GA-47, was signed on November 18, 2024, and provides a defense against the CCP’s harassment of Texans as part of is transnational repression campaigns.
The executive order calls for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to take four defensive actions within its jurisdiction. According to the order, the DPS shall bring criminal charges against any individuals targeting dissidents on behalf of foreign adversaries, and will also evaluate the incidence of transnational repression by foreign adversaries in Texas in conjunction with local and federal law enforcement partners.
It will also identify individuals suspected of taking part in these repressive actions and provide policy recommendations to state leaders by January 15, 2024, on how to “effectively counter such threats and develop training programs” so that both governmental and nongovernmental organizations within the state can report repressive activities to the DPS. Finally, the order demands the establishment of a public hotline so that Texans can report suspected incidents of transnational repression to the DPS.
“The Chinese Communist Party has engaged in a worldwide harassment campaign against Chinese dissidents in attempts to forcibly return them to China,” said Governor Abbott in a press release. “Texas will not tolerate the harassment or coercion of the more than 250,000 individuals of Chinese descent who legally call Texas home by the Chinese Communist Party or its heinous proxies.”
The first of two executive orders signed on November 19, executive order GA-48 outlines several measures to ensure that the Texas state government remains free of influence from foreign adversaries, including the CCP.
Under this executive order, all Texas state agencies are to thoroughly vet their contractors to ensure that they have no connections with foreign adversaries. All governmental employees are banned from accepting gifts from foreign adversaries, and cannot travel professionally to adversarial nations. Any government employee traveling to an adversarial nation for personal purposes must inform their employer ahead of time and submit a report of their activities after their trip. The order also calls for more detailed vetting and background checks of applicants to governmental roles.
For public universities in Texas, it ordains the disclosure of any foreign gifts it receives and contracts it is involved with. It also forbids employees of public universities in Texas from partaking in “any foreign recruitment program by a foreign-adversary nation, such as the PRC’s Thousand Talents Program.”
In the press release following the signing of this order, Governor Abbott states the importance of protecting his citizens from espionage from the CCP. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that the Chinese government has actively targeted local and state officials as part of their strategy to undermine the national security of the United States. Hardening our state government is critical to protect Texans from hostile foreign actors who may attempt to undermine the safety and security of Texas and the nation,” he stated.
The last of the three executive orders, GA-49, was signed by Governor Abbott on November 19 and addresses potential attacks the CCP may make against key infrastructure in Texas.
“Just this past year, a hostile Chinese government actor targeted America's communications, energy, transportation, water, and wastewater systems, threatening our national security. Today, I directed Texas state agencies to identify potential vulnerabilities to prevent cyberattacks on local, state, and other critical infrastructure. Texas will continue to protect our critical infrastructure to ensure the safety of Texans from potential threats by the Chinese Communist Party or any hostile foreign government,” said Governor Abbott.
The attack he referred to happened in April 2024 and was launched by Volt Typhoon, a CCP-backed hacker group that has “successfully gained access to American targets across the telecommunications, energy, water, and other critical sectors,” according to a Reuters report.
This order instructs the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the Texas Public Utility Commission to survey the state’s infrastructure for any vulnerabilities and come up with solutions to address them. It also calls for the two entities to simulate responses to cyberattacks on important industry sectors and also simulate a complete restart of Texas’ electric grid in case of an attack by a foreign adversary.
Governor Abbott’s three executive orders come at a time when CCP infiltration is becoming more brazen and high-profile throughout the United States—and at a time when more and more examples of the CCP’s influence are being revealed to the American public.
In September 2024, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Linda Sun, former senior aide to two New York governors, for acting as an undisclosed CCP agent. She was alleged to have blocked Taiwanese officials from having access to New York state officials, altered officials’ messaging to align the CCP talking points, and provided unauthorized invitation letters to arrange meetings between Chinese government officials and state officials, among other activities.
In October of 2020, the DOJ also charged eight individuals for taking part in Operation Fox Hunt, an operation to try and coerce Chinese dissidents living overseas to return to China. The DOJ accused these individuals of stalking, harassing, and threatening these dissidents at the command of the CCP.
Recently, a whistleblower inside the Chinese government has leaked internal notes from a Heilongjiang Public Security Bureau meeting that indicates that this strategy for repatriation is still in use by the CCP.
In notes from a Heilongjiang Province public security meeting obtained by the Falun Dafa Information Center, the CCP’s public security apparatus appears to be targeting Cheng Peiming, a Falun Gong practitioner residing in the United States. Cheng is the first known survivor of the CCP’s forced organ harvesting operations, where organs are forcibly taken from victims and sold for a high price—a process which often kills the victim in the process. Earlier this year, he went public with his story of how a portion of his perfectly healthy lung was removed from his body without his consent.
The notes revealed a three-part strategy for silencing Cheng from telling his story. The first prong involves coercing him to return to China by exerting pressure on him through his relatives and friends. The second prong plans to have Cheng’s friends and Chinese officials visit him in attempts to get him to retract his story, with the safety of his family in China being a key bargaining chip. If both strategies fail, the third and final strategy calls for the murder of Cheng, framed to look like a suicide.
“The Heilongjiang Public Security Bureau is responsible for the implementation of this [third strategy] and they are already making preparations,” said the whistleblower.
After the announcement of the three executive orders, several governmental officials at the federal and state level voiced their support for Texas.
Representative Michael McCaul, a congressman in the House of Representatives and the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, praised Governor Abbott for taking a strong stance against the CCP’s transnational repression.
“As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I have seen firsthand the dangers the Chinese Communist Party poses to the United States,” he said in a statement. “Texas is leading the charge in combating the CCP with the help of Governor Abbott’s leadership. We cannot sit idly by while China attempts to infiltrate our country and harm U.S. national security.”
Texas state representative Gene Wu echoed Representative McCaul’s sentiments. “I applaud Governor Abbott’s newfound commitment to protecting the civil rights of Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants and dissidents in our state. The ability to speak your mind and live freely are the core promises of the American Dream; and any who seek to take that away stand against Texas values,” he said.
In line with Representative Wu’s comments, the text of GA-48 explicitly defines the difference between the CCP and the people of China, and emphasizes that “the threat from the [People’s Republic of China] is from the government of the PRC and the CCP itself, and not from Chinese-Americans and not the Chinese people, who are often the primary victims of the PRC and the CCP.”