Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed three executive orders to protect Texans from “potential threats by the Chinese Communist Party” (Newsweek, November 20, 2024).
One of the orders, about transnational repression, seeks to prevent “harassment or coercion of Texans by foreign adversaries.”
“The Chinese Communist Party has engaged in a worldwide harassment campaign against Chinese dissidents in attempts to forcibly return them to China,” Abbott says. “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.”
In response, Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu complained that such complaints “will only embolden more Chinese criminals to seek safe haven in the U.S.” He neglected to also mention that the Chinese Communist Party regards anyone it targets for deviating from any of its ludicrous totalitarian mandates or prohibitions as “criminals”; they need not have acted to violate anyone’s rights, as the CCP routinely does.
Two other executive orders pertain to “hardening of state government” and “protection of critical infrastructure.”
According to one of them, companies submitting bids will have to “certify that none of its holding companies or subsidiaries is owned by a foreign adversary government.” Certifications to be double-checked, one hopes.
Moreover, “State employees and contractors with access to critical infrastructure will face more stringent background checks, while state agencies will be banned from contracting companies ‘owned or controlled by a foreign adversary government.’ ”
The third order requires a couple state agencies “to survey potential vulnerabilities of state and local governments and other critical infrastructure,” conduct simulations of cyberattacks, and “convene a committee of state agencies to simulate a restart of Texas’ electricity grid in the event of a foreign attack.”
Better late than never.
