USUAL SUSPECTS - Our China-obsessed approach to foreign interference is self-d efeating

The price of admission to the Senate, it seemed, was to thump our chests, declare the CCP were the baddies and draw a line in the sand marking ourselves out as the good- ies. [...] However, the singular focus on the PRC as the source of interference has been counterproductive, and threatens to damage the very democ- racy the anti- interference measures are designed to protect. [...] The criteria for investigations under the China Initiative – which the Department of Justice ended in 2022 – was that the activities had “some nexus” to the PRC. [...] The fear that foreign influence could infiltrate the Chinese population was the justification used by the PRC to erect the “Great Firewall”, which blocks access to services such as Google, Facebook and Twitter. [...] Freedom of speech The Great Firewall was created to prevent people inside the PRC from being exposed to criticisms of the Chinese government and the CCP.