Texas Governor Takes Aggressive Stand Against Chinese Influence

On 20 Novem­ber 2024, Newsweek report­ed that Texas Gov­er­nor Greg Abbott issued three exec­u­tive orders aimed at pro­tect­ing state infra­struc­ture and res­i­dents from what he describes as threats from the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant esca­la­tion in state-lev­el respons­es to for­eign influ­ence. The arti­cle begins:

Texas Gov­er­nor Greg Abbott issued a series of three exec­u­tive orders over Novem­ber 18 and 19 that he said were aimed at pro­tect­ing Tex­ans and the state’s infra­struc­ture from “poten­tial threats by the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty.” On Mon­day, Abbott signed Exec­u­tive Order No. GA-47 “relat­ing to the pre­ven­tion of harass­ment or coer­cion of Tex­ans by for­eign adver­saries.” This was fol­lowed on Tues­day by Exec­u­tive Orders GA-48 and GA-49, which relate to the “hard­en­ing of state gov­ern­ment” and the “pro­tec­tion of crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture,” respec­tive­ly. Accord­ing to the accom­pa­ny­ing state­ments all three orders were designed to counter the threat from the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty, the rul­ing pow­er in Bei­jing. The move comes dur­ing a peri­od of ris­ing ten­sion between Chi­na and the U.S., with the rival super­pow­ers clash­ing over trade, human rights, the sov­er­eign­ty of Tai­wan and the South Chi­na Sea. Dur­ing his cam­paign Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump said he would impose tar­iffs of up to 60 per­cent on Chi­nese goods if returned to the White House.According to an accom­pa­ny­ing press release, Exec­u­tive Order No. GA-47 instructs the Texas Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safe­ty (DPS) to “iden­ti­fy and charge indi­vid­u­als sus­pect­ed of crimes relat­ing to exploit­ing dis­si­dents on behalf of any for­eign government.”

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Key Points:

1. Orders require com­pa­nies bid­ding for state con­tracts to cer­ti­fy no for­eign adver­sary ownership
2. State agen­cies direct­ed to sim­u­late respons­es to poten­tial cyberattacks
3. Texas DPS autho­rized to pur­sue cas­es of dis­si­dent exploitation
4. Chi­nese Embassy strong­ly denies alle­ga­tions of harass­ment campaigns