Partisan Divides Shape US State Responses to China, Report Says

Republican and Democratic states are sharply split in their approaches to countering the Chinese communist regime’s influence at the state level in the United States, with some passing multiple tough-on-China laws while others have adopted few or none, The Heritage Foundation said in a March 20 report.

Beijing has conducted “malign influence campaigns” within U.S. states for decades, targeting state and local legislators, state universities, pension funds, and other “soft targets,” the report’s authors said. Compared with Republican states, Democratic states have passed fewer “counter-China laws.”

“National security should not be a partisan affair,” the report reads. “Democratic states should be pressured to elevate efforts to adopt the tough-on-China measures adopted by their Republican counterparts, but many Republican states still have a long way to go.”

To measure how each state has responded to China-related concerns, the report chose state laws across 11 categories, including measures targeting Chinese apps, limits on property ownership by foreign entities, restrictions on sister-city agreements, and requirements for pension fund divestment from China-linked companies. It also examined laws addressing issues such as organ transplant tourism, genomic data protection, and transnational repression.

The authors used a legal database to identify enacted laws in 11 categories across all 50 states and tallied them using a binary method, without assessing each law’s scope. They noted that some state laws “may have been unintentionally omitted.”

Party affiliation data for state governors and legislatures were recorded as of December 2025, according to the report.

Arkansas and Florida led the nation with eight China-related laws each. They were followed by Louisiana and Texas, with seven; Idaho, Tennessee, and Utah, with six; and Georgia, Indiana, Montana, and Nebraska, with four. In all of these states, both the governor’s office and the legislature were controlled by Republicans.

Arizona and Kansas, both with Democratic governors and Republican-controlled legislatures, each passed five China-related laws. Virginia, with a Republican governor and a Democratic-controlled legislature, passed four.

“Sixteen U.S. states are tied for last place, having passed no laws to counter Chinese malign influence within their jurisdictions,” the report reads. These states were Alaska, California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington.

The report points out that some types of China-related laws are more common than others. Twenty-four states have passed restrictions on foreign land ownership, and 21 have enacted limits or bans on the procurement of Chinese goods. In contrast, three states have passed bills barring U.S. cities from forming sister-city relationships with Chinese counterparts.

Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah have laws in place to combat the Chinese regime’s practice of forcibly harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience. These laws restrict or ban the use of public funds or insurance coverage for organ transplants connected to China.

The report was authored by Yuichiro Kakutani, former policy adviser for China and the Indo-Pacific at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, and Paul McCosby, a former legislative clerk at the center.

The authors said the findings may reflect broader public opinion, noting that more Republicans than Democrats view China unfavorably, citing a 2025 Pew Research Center poll.

“Chinese propagandists and agents often portray legislative efforts to counter Chinese influence as racist toward Chinese and Chinese Americans,” the report reads. “These racially charged, bad-faith accusations by Beijing’s proxies may carry greater weight with Democrats.”

The report concludes with several recommendations, including calls for advocacy groups to expand outreach to Democrat-led states and for the federal government to consider “naming and shaming” states that have not taken “meaningful action” to address China’s malign influence.