On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said that he wanted to “criminalize” anyone who is directly accepting money from China as a way to protect the country from property theft, and communist influence.

In an interview for Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” Cotton claimed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continued its “campaign” of stealing American intellectual property and “forced technology transfer.” The Republican senator believed that it is now time to stop China from getting away with it. “It is past time for us to insist on this stop. The Trump administration and the president have been doing that in various ways.”

Cotton continued that he had introduced legislation that would prevent such incidents from happening again. The Republican senator added that he wanted to “criminalize” American professors and academics who are receiving money or whose names are included on the payroll of the CCP or any of their own state-owned companies.

The senator claimed that currently, the American government could only prosecute cases that are involving wire fraud or those that were caught lying in their federal documents. “It’s the act of accepting the Chinese money itself that should be criminalized,” Cotton said. He also wanted to protect American companies from intellectual property theft, all for the sake of doing business with Chinese consumers.

Watch:

The move came after the University of Arkansas suspended Simon Ang, an electrical engineering professor who failed to disclose his ties with the communist government on his NASA application grant. In a federal complaint, Ang was accused of false representations to NASA as well as to the University after sending wire messages in a massive fraud scheme.

Cotton responded to Ang’s federal complaint by saying that Chinese spies are nor just regular fraudsters; they are also working for the country’s “adversary.” He believed that they have to change the law to ensure that these spies should be held accountable, not just to initiate a fraudulent scheme, but also to accept money from China.

In the recent months following the initial reports of a coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. had issued a crackdown on Chinese companies who are also taking advantage, not just of American companies, but as well as taxpayer’s money.

Just last week, the New York Times reported that several companies with close ties to China had received hundreds of dollars in Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans that were initially meant for American businesses. The list which was published by the Horizon Advisory revealed that as much as $192 million to $419 million were given to 125 Chinese linked companies. In fact, 32 of these companies were able to receive a loan amount to more than $1 million.

To avoid such incidents, the Republican is also pushing to introduce an amendment to the HEALS Act, citing that companies under Chinese “ownership, control or influence” should not be eligible for a PPP loan. Moreover, the new amendment would also allow the Secretary of the treasury to bring back the money that was given to these Chinese firms under the previous CARES Act.