Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday issued his third executive order in three days targeting the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party.
The orders, Abbott said, were directed toward fighting threats to state security and protecting Texans of Chinese descent from harassment and intimidation by the Chinese Communist Party and government.
Abbott’s most recent order directed the Texas Department of Emergency Management and the Public Utility Commission to create a task force to study vulnerabilities within government systems and infrastructure, make policy recommendations and run simulations of responses to potential cyberattacks.
“China has made it clear that they can — and will — target and attack America’s critical infrastructure,” Abbott said. “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.”
Abbott’s first order, issued Monday, instructed the Texas Department of Public Safety to establish a hotline for victims and to “target and arrest” operatives working with groups like the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government.
“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,” Abbott said. “Ensuring the safety, welfare, and well-being of Texans is a top priority. We will continue to do everything we can to protect Texans from the unlawful and repressive actions of the Chinese Communist Party.”
On Tuesday, Abbott directed all state agencies and institutions of higher education to “harden” their systems against infiltration by foreign governments, including stronger background checks on employees with access to critical infrastructure and a ban on state agencies doing business with companies owned wholly or partially by foreign adversary nations.
“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,” Abbott said. “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.”
According to Abbott’s office, the orders are partly in response to Operation Fox Hunt, a coordinated global espionage effort by the Chinese government to repatriate dissidents to China for punishment.
Operation Fox Hunt has been the target of a federal investigation for years, resulting in several arrests and convictions. In June 2023, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted three people on charges that included acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government, conspiracy to commit interstate stalking and interstate stalking.
For nearly a year, the FBI’s Houston office has waged a campaign to warn Houston-area residents about illegal Chinese operations in Texas. The outreach has included social media ads targeted to vulnerable communities, media interviews and public presentations, Connor Hagan, public affairs officer for the FBI’s Houston office, said in an email.
“We know this activity is happening in our city and along the Texas Gulf Coast, but we’re holding off on sharing specific numbers and stats since the campaign is ongoing,” Hagan said in the email. “Our campaign is specifically looking for potential victims in the Houston area who suffered [transnational repression] by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to come forward.”
A 2022 study by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights group, identified Houston as a potential site for one of more than 100 illicit “police service stations” in dozens of countries. The stations are set up by the Chinese government purportedly to help local citizens but have been identified by human rights groups and law enforcement as bases for Chinese operatives to pressure local dissidents.
The study also named San Francisco and Toronto, as well as Minnesota and Nebraska, as other suspected North American locations.
“These dissidents are often ‘guilty’ of nothing more than opposing the CRP government or CCP actions, including by exposing corruption,” Abbott’s Monday order said.
In several posts on social media in January – and again Monday after Abbott’s first order – the FBI’s Houston office warned that the Chinese government “may be cyberstalking, physically intimidating, and harassing Chinese citizens, naturalized U.S. citizens, and families of dissidents who speak out against the Chinese Communist Party in Texas.”
“When foreign governments stalk, intimidate, or assault people in the United States, it is considered transnational repression,” Hagan wrote in the email. “It is illegal. … Their actions violate U.S. law and our treasured American individual rights and freedoms.”
Repressive tactics can take several forms, Hagan said, including targeting social media accounts, attempted kidnappings and detaining family members in their country of origin, as well as going after activists, journalists and religious or ethnic minority groups.
State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, who was born in China and immigrated to the United States, said the intimidation of Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Americans in Texas by the Chinese government has been going on for years, and that the recent protections “could have come 10 years ago.”
“We have a large expat community, and that’s what they [the Chinese Communist Party and the government] like to do. It’s not just China – basically any oppressive regime is going to have people out in democratic countries to deal with their dissidents,” Wu said. “The Chinese police stations and all those operations have been known for a long time. There’s a huge Chinese community in Texas. Anybody could have predicted that this was likely here.”
Wu said he appreciates the support from the governor, but he worries many of the changes may have little impact beyond increased paperwork. Wu said his biggest concern is how orders directed at China might increase the suspicion and hatred directed at members of his community.
“How do other elected officials react to it? How does the public react to it?” Wu said. “Are they going to look for scapegoats? Is there going to be an increase in Asian hate crimes because of it, and almost certainly directed also at non-Chinese people, because nobody can tell the difference?”
