China business, rights practices under fire in US House hearings

China business, rights practices under fire in US House hearings

Robert Besser
04 Mar 2023, 05:53 GMT+10

• The new House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, a US congressional select committee that focuses on competition with China, held its first hearing
• The meeting was attended by Chinese dissidents and focused its discussions on human rights
• This comes amid rising tensions after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over North America and was shot down

WASHINGTON D.C.: Amid rising tensions after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over North America and was shot down, the new House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, a US congressional select committee that focuses on competition with China, held its first hearing.

The meeting was attended by Chinese dissidents and focused its discussions on human rights.

In his opening speech, Representative Mike Gallagher, Republican chairman of the committee, said, “This is not a polite tennis match. This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century, and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake.”

The committee’s leaders consider the hearing, the first of what is expected to be many over the next two years under a Republican controlled House, to be part of the efforts to convince Americans to care about competing with China, as well as to “selectively decouple” the economies of the two countries.

In his opening remarks, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the select committee, said, “Over the last three decades, both Democrats and Republicans underestimated the CCP, and assumed that trade and investment would inevitably lead to democracy and greater security in the Indo-Pacific. Instead, the opposite happened.”

Despite the committee being bipartisan, some Democrats claimed that it could cause anti-Asian sentiment in the US. In response, Krishnamoorthi highlighted the need for bipartisanship regarding the issue.

US-China tensions have been heightened by China’s increasingly aggressive military stance against Taiwan, its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, and the shooting down of the Chinese balloon suspected of spying over US territory on 4th February.

Beijing has denied that the balloon was a spy ship.