Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., says he is worried that some U.S. athletes competing in the Beijing Olympics could be exposed to long-term surveillance by China’s communist regime.
“Our FBI had to recommend that our athletes take burner phones and devices,” Cotton said Tuesday in an interview with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts on the latter’s new podcast. “I think a lot of them did. Maybe not all of them. Maybe they used the same passwords for their devices they left behind.”
The Arkansas Republican added during his interview on “The Kevin Roberts Show”:
I’m very worried about that kind of all-encompassing electronic surveillance. I’m worried about them exporting the DNA of our athletes for years to come under the pretext of coronavirus tests, having collected their DNA and added it to the massive databases that they are collecting.
Cotton had asked for President Joe Biden’s cooperation with a group of allied countries to push the International Olympic Committee for the games to be rebidden and hosted by a democracy. He cited issues in China such as the regime’s genocide of Uyghur Muslims and apparent cover-up of the origins of COVID-19.
Instead, the Biden administration decided to hold a diplomatic boycott. Cotton argued that the Winter Olympics are considerably smaller in scale than the Summer Olympics and wouldn’t be difficult to relocate.
Cotton also noted the fact that Macron was present during a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron (France) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (Russia). refused to take a COVID-19 test because he didn’t want Russia to have his DNA.
“But that’s what our athletes have had to do over the last couple weeks,” Cotton said. “So I’m still very worried about our athletes. Again, I hope they all get out safely later this week and they aren’t exposed to a lifetime of surveillance and exploitation. That’s why we should have never put them in this place to begin with, though.”
Cotton also talked about the dangers posed by the growing influence of the China lobby over the U.S. government and U.S. corporations—and the need for “decoupling” from such relationships.
“Unfortunately, China and its growing economy has spread its tentacles throughout American society to the extent that they have a vast and influential lobby in the quarters of power in Washington,” Cotton said, adding later:
Hollywood is deeply, deeply in Beijing’s pockets, both to obtain market access in China and to fund its own movies. The same goes for giant corporations that have outsourced so many of their basic manufacturing. This not only costs jobs here but also gives China more influence in corporate America. Washington then sees the results.
Cotton noted that during trade negotiations between China and the Trump administration, a lead Chinese negotiator “demanded” a meeting with the heads of Wall Street banks to “put pressure on the White House and on Congress to try to cut a better deal with China.”
Cotton said his Senate office issued a report last year on decoupling from China, breaking off the United States’ heavy dependence on the communist country.
During the Cold War, we never had the same economic entanglement as we do today with Communist China. This gives Communist China immense power and influence in the political system. And only when we take away those points of pressure, when we disentangle our economy on the strategic basis with China’s economy, can we begin to reduce the influence it has in our political system.
According to the Arkansas senator, there are certain measures that the United States can take.
We can also forbid China from trading goods in certain cases, such as rare earth element or critical items. There’s other things we can do, like repealing China’s permanent most favored nation status, which is what supercharged American investment in China that sent our factories and our manufacturing jobs to China. That’s the last thing the Chinese Communist Party wants to see.
Cotton introduced a bill that was modeled on post-9/11 legislation in order to bring justice to the victims of terrorist attacks on America. His bill would allow Americans hold Chinese Communist Party officials in American courts responsible for the spread COVID-19.
“It’s almost certain that this virus came out of a Chinese laboratory,” Cotton said. “We don’t know the circumstances of it, but every bit of evidence we have points to that. The people who were responsible for that laboratory, who hid that information, who lied to the world about it, who covered up data that could have saved lives early in this pandemic should be responsible.”
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