Rep. Michelle Steel of Seal Beach emphasized standing up to the Chinese Communist Party as her top priority during the first hearing of a new House committee created to focus on threats China could pose to the United States.
The bipartisan panel, named the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, is helmed by Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin. Made up of 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats, the panel will investigate and submit policy recommendations on matters of U.S.-China relations, including Chinese spy tactics, intellectual property theft, human rights violations and threats against Taiwan.
“More than one third of my constituents are Asian Americans. Many of them are first generation immigrants who, like my own parents, fled communism to find freedom in this country,” Steel, who was appointed to the panel in late January by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, said during the hearing. “For them and for me, the threat from the Chinese Communist Party is personal. It is the greatest single threat facing the American people and democracy around the world.”
The committee’s first meeting, which took place in prime time on Tuesday, Feb. 28, covered a lot of ground, from the treatment of the Uyghur people in China to TikTok data breaches.
While some critics have expressed concern the hearings could escalate U.S.-Chinese tensions, the panel’s chairman framed the competition between the two nations as “an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century.”
Tensions between the U.S. and China have been rising for years, with both countries enacting retaliatory tariffs on an array of imports during former President Donald Trump’s time in office. China’s opaque response to the COVID-19 pandemic, its aggression toward Taiwan and the recent flight of a possible spy balloon over the U.S. have fueled lawmakers’ desire to counter the Chinese government. The new Select…
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