{"id":21135,"date":"2022-10-28T10:12:13","date_gmt":"2022-10-28T10:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/?p=21135"},"modified":"2022-10-28T11:13:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T11:13:00","slug":"republicans-sharpen-knives-for-china-with-eye-on-house-majority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/2022\/10\/28\/republicans-sharpen-knives-for-china-with-eye-on-house-majority\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans sharpen knives for China with eye on House majority"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/uschina_020222_ap-kiichiro-sato_china.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>House Republicans plan to put sharp scrutiny on China next year if they win the majority, including establishing a select committee to take on Beijing on a range of economic and military issues.<\/p>\n<p>And while much of the their agenda consists of aggressively investigating the Biden administration and pushing partisan priorities, Republicans are hopeful that work on China and the select committee will be a largely bipartisan, non-adversarial venture that has lasting impacts in tackling a generational challenge.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a member of House Intelligence and Armed Services committees, said that there is \u201chuge opportunity in divided government\u201d to get \u201cbipartisan work\u201d done on China.<\/p>\n<p>Creating a China select committee has been a longtime goal of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who tried to work with Democrats to create one in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Republicans say, pulled Democrats out of a planned China panel the day before the original launch date that February, around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Washington Post&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2020\/05\/07\/gop-launch-china-task-force-that-democrats-bailed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>&nbsp;at the time that Democrats had concerns about the China issue being too politicized.<\/p>\n<p>After plans for a bipartisan group crumbled, McCarthy organized a House GOP China \u201cTask Force,\u201d led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Despite the task force lacking Democratic participation, McCarthy flaunted to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/2020\/09\/30\/house-gops-china-task-force-offers-plenty-of-bipartisan-proposals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Roll Call<\/a>&nbsp;later that year that \u201cmore than 60 percent of the ideas are bipartisan.\u201d A select committee would be a continuation of that effort.<\/p>\n<p>Some proposals from members on the GOP China Task Force were included in a $280 billion bill to boost domestic chip manufacturing industry and fund scientific research that was passed and signed into law earlier this year. House GOP leaders&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/3577342-whip-lash-house-gop-moves-to-oppose-chips-plus-bill-in-rebuke-to-manchin-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">whipped against<\/a>&nbsp;the final version of the bill, however, over larger political and tax objections.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis really isn\u2019t just a military effort, or even a whole-of-government effort,\u201d said Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), but an \u201call-of-society effort.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Waltz said he has experienced good bipartisan working relationships with Democrats when working on China policy that has a national-security focus. But he is not certain that would case on some domestic issues related to influence of the Chinese Communist Party \u2014 or for members who do not have access to classified information about Chinese threats.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just don\u2019t know the appreciation for example, of some Democrats that are on Ed and Labor, and are they concerned about the amount of CCP-backed money flowing into university endowments? Or the number of university students who will get a visa to come to here on a liberal arts degree, and then switch their major to nanotechnology while here? And there\u2019s no provision within our visa law to really kind of capture that,\u201d Waltz said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere were kind of so many disparate, uncoordinated efforts going on that the task force really pulled a lot of that together,\u201d said Waltz, a member of the Armed Services Committee who was also on the task force.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Specific plans and focus for the select committee are in deliberation and may change depending on who is selected to be on it, but a person familiar with the plans expects it to put a large focus on domestic, economic and tech issues. Some standing committees with access to classified information take the lead on matters of hard military power.<\/p>\n<p>Boosting U.S. competition with China in the tech space, the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s influence in American universities and Beijing\u2019s purchase of agricultural land in the U.S. are all possible areas of focus for a select committee, which is expected to collaborate with standing panels. McCarthy&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/hughhewitt.com\/future-speaker-of-the-house-kevin-mccarthy-on-relief-for-florida-election-2022\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said in a September radio interview<\/a>&nbsp;that he envisions the select committee focusing on China\u2019s control of critical minerals, its stealing of U.S. technology and its fraught relationship with Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA select committee on China could go a long way towards coordinating policy across the many committee jurisdictions and thereby create a more coherent approach to our China policy,\u201d said Gallagher, adding that it might also focus on human rights issues and \u201cideological warfare.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Both Gallagher and Waltz said that they are interested in looking at policy moves to incentivize rather than mandate the decoupling of supply chains that are too dependent on China.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will be won or lost economically way before it is militarily,\u201d Waltz said.<\/p>\n<p>GOP focus on Taiwan will extend far beyond the planned select committee.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On the House Foreign Affairs Committee, likely to be chaired by McCaul in a GOP majority, weapons sales to Taiwan will be a large focus for Republicans, particularly with the Russian invasion of Ukraine stoking fears about a Beijing attack on the island.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a whole series of things you can do when it comes to hard power and deterrence over Taiwan,\u201d Gallagher said.<\/p>\n<p>McCaul has also called for a 90-day review of the Commerce Department\u2019s Bureau of Industry and Security, and whether it is adequately enforcing compliance rules relating to trade and national security.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"thehill-promo-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/morning-report\/3708952-the-hills-morning-report-biden-gop-fish-for-votes-with-economic-bait\/\" class=\"thehill-promo-link__link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\tThe Hill\u2019s Morning Report \u2014 Biden, GOP fish for votes with economic bait\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/3708525-republicans-take-fresh-look-at-new-hampshire-senate-race\/\" class=\"thehill-promo-link__link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\tRepublicans see new opportunity to take New Hampshire Senate seat from Dems\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t<\/aside>\n<p>Rep. James Comer (Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, plans to use his committee to dig into the origins of the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan, China, with an eye on the theory that the virus originated in a lab.<\/p>\n<p>China is also a top concern for the House Intelligence Committee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know the Chinese Communist Party continues to invest and develop cyber, space, biological and nuclear weapons. Our members will continue to work with our Intelligence Community as well as our Congressional colleagues to best address these threats,\u201d Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), ranking member on the Intelligence panel, said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>House Republicans plan to put sharp scrutiny on China next year if they win the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21138,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21135\/revisions\/21138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}