Unlike Congressional China-related measures that can be easily identified through Congress.gov and/or GovTrack, currently no database solely dedicated to all state-level China-related legislative measures is publicly available. To address this gap, this study initially relied on a manual review and qualitative analyses of all results yielded from 14 full-text search queries of keyword combinations spanning geographic references, foreign entities, diplomatic designations, technology companies, and security-related terminology in LegiScan’s database of all state and Congressional measures introduced during the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions. The intent of conducting the latter queries was to capture measures related to subjects that were connected to and could potentially impact interests of the PRC and/or Chinese communities, but were not explicitly mentioned.

A measure was considered China-related if it aims to respond to Beijing’s activities (e.g. the spy balloon incident or human rights violations); address perceived risks from PRC behavior (including issues in physical security, economic security, information security, foreign influence and interference in politics and education, and public health and environment); affect potential PRC interests (e.g. campaign finance reform bills in Oregon and Utah that restrict or prohibit foreign contributions or strengthen foreign lobbying regulations) and/or Chinese communities; recognize Chinese culture; and/or otherwise directly or indirectly impact a dimension of the respective state’s relations with China (such as educational exchanges or economic engagements), even if the legislative language did not exclusively focus on China and/or explicitly mention China. Thus, resolutions that sought to educate students about the legacy of communism; celebrate the contributions of individuals, organizations, and/or Asian Americans broadly; or solely make political statements with a peripheral mention of China (e.g. an Ohio resolution expressing support for consumer choice in the automotive marketplace; a New Jersey resolution seeking U.S. cessation of funding gain-of-function research; as well as South Carolina and New Jersey resolutions calling for U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization), were excluded.

Recognizing varying legislative calendars across states (e.g. biennial vs annual sessions), the scope for 2023 and 2024 was confined to measures officially introduced between January 1 and December 31 for optimal coding consistency, allowing for generalized insights. Identical and companion measures (as determined by reviews of........

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