China has criticized the new U.S. House committee dedicated to countering Beijing.
At a daily briefing, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Mao Ning declared, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party must “view China and China-U.S. relations in an objective and rational light.”
“We demand the relevant U.S. institutions and individuals to discard their ideological bias and zero-sum Cold War mentality.”
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Mao Ning
Also, the Chinese Spokesperson said that they must “stop framing China as a threat by quoting disinformation, stop denigrating the Communist Party of China and stop trying to score political points at the expense of China-U.S. relations.”
The committee began its work on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 with a primetime hearing in which its Chairman called on lawmakers to act with urgency, framing the competition between the U.S. and China as “an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century.”
Relations between the U.S. and China have hit their lowest level in years, with both countries enacting retaliatory tariffs and trading accusations over China’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
China’s aggression toward Taiwan, drive to assert control over the South China Sea and the recent flight of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the U.S. have fueled lawmakers’ desire to do more to counter Beijing.
Testifying to the strength of those concerns, the 365-65 vote to create the committee was bipartisan, which is a rarity in the deeply divided Congress.
The new Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is expected to be at the center of many of their efforts over the next two years.
“Time Is Not On Our Side.”
The committee’s Chairman, Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin who has been a fierce critic of Beijing, disclosed that the Chinese government has found friends on Wall Street and in lobbyists in Washington who are ready to oppose the committee’s efforts.
“Time is not on our side. Just because this Congress is divided, we cannot afford to waste the next two years lingering in legislative limbo or pandering for the press. We must act with a sense of urgency.”
Mike Gallagher
Addressing concerns that the new committee could stir more anti-Asian hate crimes, Gallagher averred that he is committed to ensuring that the focus is on the Chinese Communist Party, not on the people of China.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., the ranking Democrat on the committee, opined that both Republicans and Democrats have underestimated the Chinese Communist Party. He said its goal is to pursue economic and trade policies that undermine the U.S. economy.
“We do not want a war with the (People’s Republic of China), not a cold war, not a hot war. We don’t want a clash of civilizations. But we seek a durable peace and that is why we have to deter aggression.”
Raja Krishnamoorthi
The witnesses for Tuesday’s hearing included two former advisers to Trump; Matthew Pottinger, the Deputy National Security Adviser who resigned immediately after the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as well as H.R. McMaster, who was National Security Adviser from February 2017 to April 2018.
Tuesday’s hearing was interrupted by two protesters, one saying, “this committee is about saber rattling, it’s not about peace.” Both were ushered out by police.
The hearings come at a time of heightened rivalry and tensions between China and the United States. Both sides, that is, the U.S. and its allies, and China are consolidating military positions in the Indo-Pacific in case of any confrontation over self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.
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