WASHINGTON – The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) called on American companies and lawmakers on Tuesday to abandon a decades-old strategy of playing nice with China economically, issuing 150 recommendations aimed at making America less dependent on its arch-enemy. .
“Never before has the United States faced a geopolitical enemy with which it is economically intertwined,” the committee said in its latest report. “Addressing this novel competition requires a reassessment of US policy toward economic engagement with [China.]”
For more than 20 years, the US has employed a strategy of “robust economic engagement” in the hope that the CCP will “open its economy and financial markets and further liberalize its political system and adhere to the rule of law,” the report said.
However, “the reforms did not materialize,” and the Chinese government instead launched “a decades-long campaign of economic aggression against the United States and its allies.”
“For the past two decades, [China] has strategically distanced itself from the United States, reducing its own dependence on the world while increasing America’s dependence on [China,]” said the report. “In response, the United States must now chart a new path that places national security, economic security and its values at the core of the US-[China] relationship.”
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issued 150 recommendations aimed at making America less dependent on its archenemy. SOPA/LightRocket image via Getty Images
Committee members hope the proposals — which range from banning TikTok to pushing federal health systems like Medicare to “buy American” — will end up in bipartisan legislation as soon as next year, said Ranking Member King Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.).
The select committee, formed in January and chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), has been heralded for his rare degree of bipartisanship. The report represents the culmination of the group’s work during its first year of existence.
“It’s rare to get agreement in Washington, DC right now on anything, let alone 150 proposals,” Gallagher said. “It doesn’t mean everyone gets what they want, but I think the report shows you can make principled compromises without compromising your principles.”
Key recommendations
The recommendations focus on three themes: “reset, prevent and build.” That means making adjustments to the current US-China engagement, as well as protecting and investing in American innovation, Gallagher said.
“We need to reset our economic relationship with China, we need to prevent American capitalist technology from enabling [Chinese military] advances and CCP human rights abuses … and building collective resilience in our supply chain with allies and partners,” he said.
Much of the report calls for “immediately” shutting down the flow of American technology and dollars to aid China’s military modernization and human rights abuses, such as slave labor.
“Never before has the United States faced a geopolitical enemy with which it is economically intertwined,” the committee said in its latest report. AFP via Getty Images
“The United States must change course,” the report said. “To quote Dr. Eric Schmidt at [a] Select Committee hearings … ‘it’s never too late to stop digging our own graves.’”
The committee has made numerous inquiries about China’s use of American technology against the US – particularly after finding that Beijing relies in part on accessing or exploiting US intellectual property to spy on Americans from its surveillance base in Cuba.
“[China President] Xi [Jinping] has expressed its intention to ‘win the main and core technology battles’ decisively and constructively [Chinese military] into a ‘great wall of steel,’” the report said. “Currently, US capital, technology and expertise are helping that effort.”
The report recommends legislation to allow the president to ban any national security-related technology “owned, controlled, or developed by a foreign adversary” from being sold in America.
“These technologies should include but not be limited to quantum computing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and surveillance technologies,” the committee recommended.
The select committee, formed in January and chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher, was hailed for its rare degree of bipartisanship as the report represented the culmination of the group’s work during its first year of existence. Getty Images
The president’s authority would not extend to controversial China-related consumer products and services like TikTok – which has been debated by Congress since former President Donald Trump tried to ban China-related platforms in 2020
However, the committee called for addressing the issue in separate legislation that would “force divestment … or ban foreign adversary-controlled social media platforms such as TikTok” from the US.
In addition, the report also focuses its recommendations on supporting American innovation in technology and science – with the goal of keeping the US competitive with a rapidly developing China.
For example, it requires funding for major US research institutions – including the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Technology Standards and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science – to study technologies that affect US national security and supply chain security.
“As we try to defend ourselves from China, it is important that we increase our cooperation, economy and technology in the free world,” he said.
The proposal focuses on three themes: “reset, prevent and build,” because that means making adjustments to current US-China engagement, as well as protecting and investing in American innovation, Gallagher said. Getty Images
What is at stake
Rather than an overly optimistic goal, Gallagher said the report represents “a blueprint for not only how we mitigate risk from China, but how we can turbocharge the American economy for decades to come.”
“After watching [China] broke the rules for two decades and [having] really did nothing about it, seeing the consequences in terms of deindustrialization in the country and intellectual property,” he said. “We simply recognize that reality and put forward a series of recommendations on how we can better defend ourselves.”
The committee’s main prerogative with the report is to support investment in the US to enable the country to free itself from its extensive economic dependence on China.
It comes after lawmakers took part in a table-top exercise this summer, which found such reliance would come at a huge cost to the American people in the event of a conflict with Beijing – and that the US must “reduce its reliance on [China] in the critical sector, address [its] penetration of US capital markets and building greater collective resilience with allies and partners.”
Held in New York with military experts and commercial and financial executives, the exercise simulated how the US could respond economically and financially if China attacked Taiwan.
“During the training, the participants tried to prevent [Chinese] action through financial sanctions and penalties but soon discovered that, given our significant dependence and financial involvement with [People’s Republic of China]actions during the heat of the crisis could bring great costs to the United States,” the report said.
Describing the relationship between US companies and the Chinese government, Gallagher referred to an event with Xi last month organized by the US-China Business Council and the National Committee on US-China Relations that sold $40,000 tickets for American corporate executives to sit in the dictator’s office. table during his visit to San Francisco.
“To me, the prospect of Xi Jinping’s $40,000-a-head dinner proves that I think Congress needs to act,” he said, “and that we need to step forward and have a real strategy.”
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
