This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, July 28th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The US response to likely espionage by the Chinese government emanating from consulates is, as Cato Senior Fellow Brandon Valeriano

says, the path of least resistance kick them out.

But there are real concerns about the behavior of the Chinese government, Huawei, and Tik-Tok's possible role

as intelligence assets for the Chinese government and thefts of intellectual property,

potentially including critical information about the coronavirus and a possible vaccine.

If there is espionage of some variety going on on U.S. soil, although I guess not technically U.S. soil, in foreign countries consulates,

does it matter if we kick them out or not?

Oh no, not at all. This is a strategy of least

resistance. Responding to persistent hacking by China by taking down one

consulate in Houston of all places is probably the least the United States can do.

And that's probably their strategic game right now.

They don't want to escalate the situation anymore.

Shutting down the San Francisco consulate would have more drastic effects for the Asian and

Chinese population in the United States, but the Houston consulate has a less dramatic impact.

Okay, so what is the U.S. government, or specifically the White House, what have they demanded so far?

I'm not exactly clear. They seem to be demanding that China stop espionage which sounds like a ridiculous proposition in and of itself

They of course have been tethered to this idea or the fact that China and Russia have been

hacking into COVID-19 research.

And the indictment released yesterday, which was Wednesday, the 22nd of July, indicates that the hackers

operate in China have tried to access COVID-19 research, but it didn't indicate they were successful.

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