The growing threat from China extends well beyond spy balloons and TikTok.
U.S. lawmakers are currently pushing legislation which would enable a firm created by China's central bank to process Americans' credit card transactions, Jianli Yang, the founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China, wrote in a Feb. 21 analysis for The Washington Times.
The firm is UnionPay, which was established in 2002 and is funded by the communist government in Beijing.
Since the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was passed in 2010, UnionPay "has been processing debit card transactions in the U.S. thanks to a provision in the bill referred to as 'the Durbin Amendment,' " Yang noted.
The same corporations who pushed for the debit card policy "want to do the same thing to the credit card market," Yang wrote.
Those include Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, Target, and Kroger.
"Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed concern that the social media app TikTok is collecting users’ personal data and information on China’s behalf," Yang noted. "Yet the same lawmakers are not batting an eye at the thought of millions of credit card users’ personal financial information being sent to a Chinese government-owned payment processing firm under orders from the U.S. government."
Yang continued: "If TikTok, a supposed 'private' company, is spying on Americans, is there any doubt that a state-owned entity is doing the same for the Chinese Communist Party’s benefit?
"In fact, the proposal, the Credit Card Competition Act, would direct the Federal Reserve to compile a public list of payment networks that are sponsored by a foreign entity or could pose a national security risk.
"If there is one thing that we can all agree will not make Beijing second-guess its proactive actions and spy balloons, it is a public list generated by the Federal Reserve."
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