In a letter to TikTok executives, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, pressed for answers on the Chinese-owned company’s recent recruitment of American minors for its recent all-out lobbying campaign against congressional action that would require TikTok to server ties with the Chinese Communist Party.

          “I write to you with grave concerns regarding the targeting of American children with Chinese Communist Party propaganda—during school hours—and recruiting minors to act as foreign agents for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping,” wrote Smith, who has chaired nearly 100 congressional hearings on the CCP’s egregious human rights abuses.

          “The policies and practices of TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are driven by the CCP’s authoritarian agenda to assert soft power and negatively influence a generation of young Americans,” Smith said. “The fact that children were not only used to advance this agenda but were targeted to be the primary agents of lobbying Congress on behalf of a foreign power is deeply disturbing.”

          “In order to best protect the interests of the United States, it is imperative that Congress determine whether the CCP, directly or indirectly, demanded TikTok use children to lobby Congress on their behalf,” Smith wrote.

          Smith’s letter comes as Congress looks to mitigate the severe national security risks posed by TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is headquartered in China—with offices in Beijing—and is compelled to participate in a strategic partnership with the CCP’s Ministry of Public Security.

          “As Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, I have extensively monitored the policies and methods the People’s Republic of China (PRC) security forces have employed to exert intrusive social controls over their own population,” wrote Smith.

          “There is no way a business entity located in the PRC may avoid partnership with the Chinese Communist Party, and there is no reason for the United States Congress to believe TikTok is able to avoid compliance with CCP demands that advance its authoritarian practices around the world, including demands that violate the human rights of those they deem undeserving of basic human dignity,” Smith continued.

          Smith gave TikTok one week to provide an explanation as to why they are “actively recruiting American children to act as foreign agents for the Chinese Communist Party” and to hand over all internal documentation related to the genesis, approval, and execution of the advocacy campaign.

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