‘They’re spying on us across the board.’
This morning, I sat down with Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Gallagher boasts credentials steeped in intelligence work — first as an intelligence officer in the USMC and now in the House as an active member in a multitude of intelligence-focused committees.
Gallagher and I met at Copper Rock Coffee Co. in downtown Appleton, Wis., to discuss the threat and ramifications of recent foreign flying objects, one of which came close enough to Gallagher’s district to force the closure of the northern half of Lake Michigan, before being shot down over Lake Huron.
The congressman suggested what we’ve observed over the past several days is just part of a much-broader surveillance operation:
They’re spying on us across the board. So think of this as one part of a broader effort that includes CCP police stations on American soil — which need to be shut down — PLA-affiliated researchers infiltrating our universities, CCP-affiliated land purchases — or attempted land purchases — near military bases like or just the gray area between legitimate Chinese investment in the United States or something the CCP is doing strategically to get access to IP and tech that they could transfer, whether it’s AI or quantum [computing], etc.
(Sources added for reference.)
The political messaging of the CCP’s balloon downed off the coast of South Carolina and suspected further incursions from smaller objects was of great interest to the congressman.
Gallagher noted:
The most interesting question, in my opinion, beyond the capabilities of this balloon and where these other ones came from, is whether this was all deliberately timed by the CCP to send a message, right? To time with [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken’s visit. To basically say, “Look, your secretary of State’s coming over here, and then look what we can do to you simultaneously.” And that would make sense given their past behavior.
He noted the “broadside” suffered by Blinken when meeting with Chinese officials in Alaska in 2021 and the similar attempts to embarrass Barack Obama at the G20 summit in 2016. Gallagher continued that it’s “in the [CCP’s] DNA. They love to mess with us and test us and probe our defenses.” He reiterated that what’s most interesting about the entire balloon episode is what it tells us about the CCP.