Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, today called attention to the grave threat of potential nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks delivered by high-altitude balloons during House consideration of a resolution condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) recent spy balloon flight over the United States.

            “The Chinese Communist Party is testing us,” said Smith, “and we did not rise to the challenge.”

            Debating in favor of the resolution on the House Floor, Smith pointed to a recent Washington Examiner article detailing the 2015 report by US Air Force Major David Stuckenberg  on the risk of EMP attacks, which can leave electricity grids fried for a year or longer and result in millions of deaths.

            “Xi and the CCP systematically murder, jail, torture, persecute and crush their own citizens and pose an existential military threat to its neighbors in the region and the United States,” said Smith, who voted in favor of the resolution that was adopted unanimously by the House.

            “We need to up our game and mitigate the threat to our own people,” said Smith, who has chaired 76 congressional hearings on the CCP’s human rights abuses.

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