and ZTE, enabling these telecommunications behemoths to undercut rivals in the race to construct 5G networks on every continent.32 Since Huawei and ZTE are subject to China’s various national security laws that compel them to “support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work,” countries that use them as 5G vendors face growing threats to their network integrity, data privacy, economic stability, and national security.33 Moreover, under the guise of so-called “smart city” development projects, Huawei and ZTE can export to autocratic regimes around the world the same Orwellian tools that they provide the CCP to surveil people in China.34 Meanwhile, since military operations, espionage, and political warfare depend on information and data, China invests large sums to gain advantage in cyberspace, including physical architecture, operating systems, and hardware.35
Fifth, the CCP uses the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — originally called One Belt One Road (OBOR) and still so designated by the PRC in Chinese-language sources — and other undertakings to expand foreign markets for Chinese companies and as a means of drawing nations, particularly their political and economic elites, into Beijing’s geopolitical orbit. BRI infrastructure projects — ports, railroads, highways, dams, industrial parks, civil nuclear facilities and other energy related initiatives, and more — typically rely on imported Chinese workers rather than local labor, and sometimes involve 50- to 100-year business relationships that entrench China’s long-term access to local elites and confer power over key parts of the host country’s critical infrastructure. Because of the heavy economic and environmental costs imposed by the CCP, host countries increasingly find these BRI projects unsustainable. As a result of China’s predatory development program and debt-trap diplomacy, for example, Sri Lanka lost control of a major port after defaulting on a burdensome loan.36
Sixth, China leverages often unfettered access to foreign capital markets.37 In particular, U.S. stock exchanges today list over 130 Chinese companies — including Alibaba, PetroChina Company Limited, China Life Insurance Company Limited, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, Baidu, and Tencent — with a combined valuation of over $1 trillion.38 Following massive financial and accounting scandals in the early 2000s, the U.S. Congress enacted laws requiring regulators to inspect the audits of all U.S.-listed companies.39 China is the only country that invokes its state security laws to block U.S. regulators from conducting these inspections.40 Moreover, U.S. investors and pension holders unwittingly pour billions into
