WASHINGTON – The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Tuesday called on American companies and lawmakers to abandon the decades-long strategy of being friendly to China economically, issuing 150 recommendations aimed at making the United States less dependent on its main adversary.
“Never before has the United States faced a geopolitical adversary with which it is so economically interconnected,” the committee said in its latest report. “Addressing this new competition will require a fundamental reassessment of U.S. policy toward economic engagement with [China.]”
For more than 20 years, the United States has employed a strategy of “strong economic engagement” in the hope that the CCP would “open its economy and financial markets and, in turn, liberalize its political system and respect the rule of law.” said the report.
However, “those reforms did not occur” and instead the Chinese government launched a “multi-decade campaign of economic aggression against the United States and its allies.”
“During the last two decades, [China] has strategically decoupled from the United States, reducing its own dependence on the world and at the same time increasing the United States’ dependence on [China,]”the report said. “In response, the United States must now chart a new path that places its national security, economic security, and values at the center of its strategy.[China] relationship.”
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issued 150 recommendations aimed at making the United States less dependent on its main adversary. SOPA/LightRocket Images via Getty Images
Committee members hope the recommendations, which range from banning TikTok to pressuring federal health systems like Medicare to “buy American,” will end up in bipartisan legislation as early as next year, the ranking member said. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.).
The select committee, formed in January and chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), has been praised for its unusual level of bipartisanship. The report represents the culmination of the group’s work during its first year of existence.
“It’s rare to reach agreement in Washington, D.C. right now on anything, much less 150 recommendations,” Gallagher said. “That’s not to say that everyone got what they wanted, but I think the report shows that you can reach a principled compromise without compromising your own principles.”
Key recommendations
The recommendations focus on three themes: “reset, prevent and build.” That means making adjustments to the current engagement between the United States and China, as well as protecting and investing in American innovation, Gallagher said.
“We need to restore our economic relationship with China, we need to prevent American capitalist technology from allowing [Chinese military] advances and human rights abuses by the CCP… and build collective resilience in our supply chains together with allies and partners,” he said.
Much of the report calls for “immediately” shutting down the flow of technology and U.S. dollars to aid China’s military modernization and human rights abuses such as slave labor.
“Never before has the United States faced a geopolitical adversary with which it is so economically interconnected,” the committee said in its latest report. AFP via Getty Images
“The United States must change course,” the report said. “To quote the observations of Dr. Eric Schmidt in [a] Select Committee hearing… ‘it is never too late to stop digging our own grave.’”
The committee has conducted numerous investigations into China’s use of American technology against the United States, particularly after finding that Beijing had relied in part on accessing or exploiting American intellectual property to spy on Americans from its base. surveillance in Cuba.
“[China President] Xi [Jinping] has made clear its intention to “resolutely win the battle of key and core technologies” and build the [Chinese military] into a ‘great wall of steel,’” the report says. “Today, American capital, technology and expertise are assisting in that effort.”
The report recommends legislation that would allow the president to ban the sale in the United States of any national security-related technology “owned, controlled, or developed by a foreign adversary.”
“These technologies should include, but are not limited to, quantum computing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and surveillance technology,” the committee recommended.
The select committee, formed in January and chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher, has been praised for its unusual level of bipartisanship, as the report represents the culmination of the group’s work during its first year of existence. fake images
Presidential authority would not extend to controversial consumer products and services linked to China, such as TikTok, which Congress has been debating since former President Donald Trump attempted to ban the China-linked platform in 2020.
However, the committee called for addressing the issue in separate legislation that would “force divestment from… or ban social media platforms controlled by foreign adversaries like TikTok” in the United States.
Additionally, the report also focuses its recommendations on supporting American innovation in technology and science, with the goal of keeping the United States competitive in the face of a rapidly advancing China.
For example, it requires funding key U.S. research institutions—including the National Science Foundation, the National Technology Standards Institute, and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science—to study technologies that affect U.S. national security and supply chain security.
“As we try to defend ourselves against China, it is important that we increase our economic and technological collaboration within the free world,” he said.
The recommendations focus on three themes: “reset, prevent and build,” as that means making adjustments to the current engagement between the United States and China, as well as protecting and investing in American innovation, Gallagher said. fake images
What is at stake
Instead of overly optimistic goals, Gallagher said the report represents “a plan to not only de-risk China but also boost the U.S. economy for decades to come.”
“Having observed [China] breaking the rules for two decades and [having] “We haven’t really done anything about it, looking at the consequences in terms of internal deindustrialization and intellectual property,” he said. “We are simply acknowledging that reality and putting forward a series of recommendations on how we can best defend ourselves.”
The committee’s main prerogative with the report is to support investment within the United States to allow the nation to free itself from its widespread economic dependence on China.
It comes after lawmakers participated in a desk exercise this summer, which concluded that such dependence would come at a great cost to Americans if conflict with Beijing broke out, and that the United States must “reduce its dependence on China.” [China] in critical sectors, address [its] penetration of US capital markets and build greater collective resilience with allies and partners.”
Held in New York with military experts and business and financial executives, the exercise simulated ways the United States could respond economically and financially should China invade Taiwan.
“During the exercise, participants attempted to dissuade [Chinese] action through financial sanctions and punishments, but we soon discovered that, given our significant dependence and financial entanglement with the [People’s Republic of China]“Actions during the heat of a crisis could carry tremendous costs for the United States,” the report says.
To illustrate the connections between U.S. corporations and the Chinese government, Gallagher pointed to an event with Xi last month hosted by the U.S.-China Business Council and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, which sold $40,000 worth of tickets. for American corporate executives to sit in the dictator’s house. table during his trip to San Francisco.
“For me, the prospect of a dinner with Xi Jinping for $40,000 a head made it clear that I think Congress needs to act,” he said, “and that we need to step up and have a real strategy.”
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn