Chinese spy balloon ‘a Sputnik moment’

During an interview on Newsmax TV on Friday, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) said the Chinese spy balloon incident was meant to be “a Sputnik moment” for the United States.

Waltz said, “I think a potential silver lining to this spy balloon incident is that I hope this is a Sputnik moment for American society and the government in Washington, D.C. that we need – we absolutely need an alarm signal. It is the most massive espionage operation that an adversary has undertaken against the United States and influence operation in American history. We are under attack from Chinese espionage. It’s in our research labs. It is in our universities. It is – they influence and buy sports, Wall Street, academia, pouring billions into college endowments – the Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania being just one of them. And now, as we conduct our own investigation – and ask the Pentagon to do theirs – we find that China-backed private equity [is] the purchase of military schools, private schools and boarding schools all over the United States. First, it gives them a platform to influence our kids on top of what they already do with TikTok. And second, they can send their elites to these schools. So we just have to have a wake up call on all levels. And again, the saddest thing is that we pay for it. It is our money that fuels their military build-up and spy operation.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett