States Have an Important Role to Play in Countering CCP Infiltration

National Review published this op-ed on March 12, 2026

While American states debate the nature and scope of foreign adversary threats, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is actively stealing intellectual property, coopting university research programs, placing operatives in state and local political processes, and acquiring strategic real estate adjacent to military installations. The question for state legislatures is not whether these threats are real, but whether they are willing to act before a breach occurs rather than after.

In Indiana, Governor Mike Braun recently signed SB 256, a sweeping law addressing CCP infiltration across four critical domains: government technology contracts, university research security, real property acquisition, and foreign agent registration. It is among the most comprehensive state-level responses to foreign adversary threats in the country and deserves to be replicated.

Indiana public schools have distributed tens of thousands of Lenovo devices to students and teachers. What many parents don’t know is that Lenovo’s largest shareholder is Legend Holdings, the investment arm of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Lenovo devices have a documented history of security vulnerabilities in government use. The State Department banned them from its network in 2006, and a 2008 lawsuit alleged that relabeled Lenovo devices given to the Marine Corps transmitted data back to China.

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