Protect America's Innovation and Economic Security From Ccp Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. TOKUDA. Mr. Chair, there is no denial that the CCP has worked for decades to steal our intellectual property and research in critical technologies. We should be here today finding real solutions, not putting up false choices to combat those efforts and defend our national security.

Instead, Republicans are obsessed with starting a racially charged witch hunt against Asian Americans across the country. They want to revive the Trump administration's failed China Initiative, which overwhelmingly targeted people of Chinese descent, destroying careers and spreading fear.

Despite years of damage, with Asian Americans across the country have been telling us that the China Initiative was racially profiling them and infringing on their civil rights, yet House Republicans' proposal for a restarted CCP initiative includes no language that would address those concerns. I filed an amendment to try and address this issue, but House Republicans refused to allow my amendment to be considered.

In their single-minded focus on the CCP, they have forgotten the lessons of our country's history in targeting Asian Americans and the lives that have been destroyed as a result of it.

According to a recent national academic survey, 86 percent have said that it is harder to recruit international students than just 5 years ago, 72 percent do not feel safe as an academic researcher, and 61 percent have thought of leaving the U.S. altogether.

We already know the harmful, chilling impacts of the China Initiative on our scientific enterprise and ultimately our national security. For years, the CCP has been focused on recruiting scientific talent. Thanks to the CCP initiative's reverse brain drain, we are now driving our best scientists straight into the arms of the CCP.

The bottom line is that this bill is not just unnecessary, it undermines and destroys our research competitiveness and our national security. It is harmful to the civil rights that generations of Asian Americans have fought so hard to defend. I find it amusing that my colleague on the other side of the aisle feels that Republicans and Trump did so much for our Chinese Americans. From what I saw and what I felt as an Asian-American woman all we got from Trump was xenophobia, anti-Asian hate and racism. We are not going to go back. We will not be revictimized again, and it is downright un-American.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to stand for Asian Americans across the country and vote against this egregious bill.

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