New US House committee turns its attention to strategic competition with China

US lawmakers are launching an initiative this week to address – over the next two years – the strategic competition between the US and China, with a prime-time hearing on Tuesday, featuring testimony from human rights activists and members of the security team. national of former President Donald Trump.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, who will chair the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with China, said CBS earlier this week: “We can call this a strategic competition, but it’s not a tennis match. It’s about what kind of world we want to live in. Do we want to live in Xinjiang-lite, or do we want to live in the free world?

Gallagher characterized Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghur minority population in China’s Xinjiang province.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi will be the top Democrat on the committee, which has been described by many of its 24 members as a great opportunity for bipartisan cooperation.

While the first hearing will focus on security concerns, the committee’s work is expected to address a wide range of issues in the relationship, from economic and agricultural competition to the origins of the pandemic of COVID-19.

Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson, a member of the committee, recently told the voice of america that the US-China relationship is often incorrectly compared to the Cold War between the US and the then-Soviet Union.

“It’s a very different environment,” Johnson said in an interview in early February. “We didn’t need to delink our economy from the Soviet Union in any specific way. The Soviet Union was a one-dimensional threat, it was a military threat. The Chinese Communist Party is a threat in a much more comprehensive way.”

While in the minority in the 117th Congress, the Republicans formed a China Task Force. This bipartisan group of lawmakers said they will continue their efforts in a spirit of cooperation.

Johnson said several themes emerged from the committee’s first planning meeting.

“Number one, our work must be bipartisan. Number two, that the Chinese people are the main victims of the Chinese Communist Party’s pattern of aggression. The Chinese people are not an adversary,” he said.

The recent shooting down by the United States of an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina focused the attention of the American public on the security challenges posed by China.

“In fact, it has accelerated the formation, the reasons for the formation of the committee,” he told the VOA Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse, a committee member, adding that it was important to understand China’s pattern of behavior and what the US should do to deter any potential action. “We need to be smart, smarter; we need to be connected, with eyes wide open on what’s happening in the world in relation to China.”

Democratic Rep. Andre Carson, who also sits on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, told the VOA that surveillance balloons will keep security concerns at the forefront of your job. But the committee also plans to delve into other areas of strategic expertise.

“We need to explore semiconductor production and how our allies are now working with us to thwart China’s expansion efforts,” Carson said. “And I think we have to look at ways in which our supply chain is compromised in this process.”

Carson also raised concerns about Chinese investments in US companies and front businesses in Indiana, the industrial Midwest and elsewhere.

The committee is considering hearings outside the Capitol to see firsthand the potential threats to critical infrastructure. Carson, however, stressed that the tone of the committee’s work is also important and will be heard across the country.

“We want to make sure, without increasing discrimination against Asian Americans in the process, that we are strengthening our national security apparatus, while at the same time not fanning the flames of xenophobia and anti-Asian sentiment,” he said.

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