ICYMI: Moolenaar in Newsweek - 'Mr. Xi, Tear Down this Firewall'

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- In an op-ed published by Newsweek, Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) urges Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping to remove authoritarian barriers to the internet in China. Tomorrow morning, the Select Committee will host a hearing titled, "The Great Firewall and the CCP’s Export of its Techno-Authoritarian Surveillance State."

Read Chairman Moolenaar's op-ed in Newsweek HERE or continue below:

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"When General Secretary Xi Jinping was in San Francisco last fall, he declared that America and China "must not erect barriers" between one another. He can be true to his word by tearing down the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) Great Firewall.

The Great Firewall is a dystopian censorship regime designed to advance near-total societal control over the Chinese people. With an army of censors boosted by artificial intelligence and the assistance of cutting-edge technology, it monitors all information and expression within China, enabling the CCP to rapidly stamp out unapproved speech, while referring violations to the police.

The Great Firewall inhibits contact between Chinese citizens and the outside world. Information is stopped from flowing into China and the Chinese people are not allowed to get information out. Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube are blocked. Behind the Great Firewall, the CCP has the Chinese people trapped in a parallel reality where they are fed a steady stream of propaganda tightly controlled by Xi's authoritarian regime.

The CCP has turned the internet, designed as a tool of freedom, into the ultimate tool of control. And as it has grown more powerful, the Party has only expanded its ambition to maintain total control— physically, economically, politically, culturally, and intellectually. In fact, despite spending historic amounts on a massive military buildup, the CCP still spends more on internal security than it does on its military.

But the CCP's quest for control does not stop at China's borders. The CCP is rapidly exporting its surveillance technology abroad, enabled by state-backed champions like Huawei, Hikvision, and ZTE. It has found plenty of buyers.

From the tyrannical Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela to the ayatollahs of Iran, the CCP exports its malign technologies to help authoritarian governments control the internet and oppress their populations. Not only does this undermine human rights globally, but by creating a network of pro-CCP governments that increasingly owe their hold on power to the CCP, it also threatens America's national security.

Over the last year and a half, the Select Committee on the CCP has worked tirelessly to champion the rights of the Chinese people to speak freely. We have held hearings where dissidents and Chinese students described violent threats they have faced right here in the United States, and we have called loudly for an end to their oppression. We have tried to break the barriers between the Chinese and American people that Xi claims to care so much about, but the Great Firewall stands in the way.

Tomorrow, the Select Committee will again champion the rights of the Chinese people. We will hold a hearing on the Great Firewall and the ways we can expose the Chinese people to the "irresistible power of unarmed truth," a phrase first used by Russian author Boris Pasternak and repeated by former President Ronald Reagan in 1988 as his dream for people trapped behind the Iron Curtain.

The CCP fears that power and spends tens of billions of dollars on global propaganda and censorship to control it. We should set it free—and give the Chinese people unfettered access to the truth. This means countering Chinese censorship with honest information and fighting the CCP's export of surveillance technology worldwide. It also means ensuring transparency at home. Whether in Hollywood or Silicon Valley or on college campuses, CCP censorship has no place in America.

What the CCP fears most is the Chinese people learning the truth—the truth about the Uyghurs, Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, COVID-19, the Chinese economy, corruption—and worst of all, the truth about the CCP itself. Why? For one reason and one reason only—They know their rule is built on the lie that only the Party can speak for the Chinese people.

To make good on his promises from San Francisco, Xi should heed Reagan's advice to a different general secretary and tear down his firewall. As Reagan observed in Berlin, 'This wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.'

What was true of walls of concrete and barbed wire will be true of walls of code. I invite you to join the Select Committee tomorrow as we discuss how we can repeat Reagan's success and ensure that, once again, freedom is the victor."