The Select: A Weekly Committee Recap (Week of 11/6)

November 13, 2023

Welcome to The Select, a weekly newsletter on the work of the Congressional Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party led by Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI).

See below for last week's updates.

Gallagher Meets with Chinese Dissidents in San Francisco ahead of Xi Visit

Just days before President Biden meets with communist dictator, Xi Jinping, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, Chairman Gallagher traveled to San Francisco to meet with Chinese Americans and members of the global Chinese diaspora who have faced relentless persecution and transnational repression at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

Chairman Gallagher addressed a press conference organized by prominent Chinese dissidents, telling the audience, "Today, the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is amassing the largest conventional stockpile of rockets and missiles the world has ever seen. Their navy is now the largest in the world, purpose-built for a cross-strait operation to invade or blockade Taiwan. Many China-watchers around Washington D.C. believe that the Taiwan Strait could be the most important battlefield of the 21st century.

But that’s not what the CCP thinks. In Xi Jinping’s view, the war has already started on the most important battlefield: your mind.

The CCP calls it cognitive domain operations or psychological warfare.

As Xi Jinping himself has said in a speech on military political work, “The crumbling of a regime always starts in the realm of ideas. . . changing the way people think is a long-term process. Once the front lines of human thought have been broken through, other defensive lines also become hard to defend.”

View more from Chairman Gallagher's trip and read his remarks HERE.

Select Committee Issues Demands For Xi Jinping Ahead of Meeting with President Biden

Last Thursday, Chairman Gallagher and the Republican members on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party wrote to President Biden ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco this week. The lawmakers advised President Biden to reverse months of misguided approaches to China and challenge Xi to fulfill basic demands such as releasing American citizens wrongly imprisoned in Communist China.

In the letter, the lawmakers write, "[Y]our administration has presided over an overwhelming decline in action [toward the CCP] in the last 18 months, particularly those related to human rights. With notable exceptions such as strengthened semiconductor export controls and new restrictions on outbound investment – which we have strongly supported – self-censorship of defensive actions appears to have skyrocketed...

"While your administration’s public position on competition and cooperation with the PRC has remained the same, it is clear that competitive actions have been sacrificed to advance aimless, zombie-like engagement.

"So far, these very real tradeoffs have led to negligible benefit. Despite repeated concessions from Washington, Beijing has taken no action to stem the flow of deadly fentanyl precursors to North America, no action to increase market access in line with its trade commitments, no action to reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait or to stop its dangerous military provocations in the South China Sea, and no action to stop its unprecedented campaign of espionage against the United States. On the contrary, many of these problems have only gotten worse, especially over the past year."

Read the full letter to President Biden HERE.

TikTok is 'National Self-Sabotage' - Rep. Torres

Last Tuesday, Chairman Gallagher and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) joined Bret Baier on Fox News' Special Report for a 'Common Ground' segment where they discussed the Chinese Communist Party's control of TikTok.

“There’s a specific problem with TikTok, which is that it’s controlled by ByteDance, a Chinese company that is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. We have to ask ourselves whether we want to dominant media platform in America to be controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.” - Chairman Gallagher said.

“The fact that we have put the leading news source for the next generation of Americans in the hands of our leading foreign adversary— Historians will remember that as a catastrophic miscalculation. It’s national self-sabotage.” - Rep. Torres added.

Watch the full interview HERE.

Gallagher, Rubio Press State Department on Invite to Sanctioned Hong Kong Chief Executive

Last Monday, Chairman Gallagher and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken following reports that members of the Biden Administration invited Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee to the United States for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on November 15.

John Lee is sanctioned by the U.S. government for his role aiding the Chinese Communist Party's destruction of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong. Gallagher and Rubio asked Secretary Blinken to immediately clarify and provide details regarding Lee's reported invitation.

In the letter, Gallagher and Rubio write, "Chief Executive Lee was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2020 pursuant to Executive Order 13936 for his role as Hong Kong’s Security Secretary in implementing the National Security Law imposed by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to crack down on pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong... Despite the State Department’s assurance of not inviting Chief Executive Lee to Congress, on November 1st, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region stated that Chief Executive Lee had 'personally received” an invitation from the United States to attend the APEC summit but that he would not be able to attend due to “scheduling reasons.' If true, this would mean that the State Department either deliberately lied to or misled Congress in July or later caved to the PRC demand, or both."

Read the full letter to President Biden HERE.

Gallagher, Krishnamoorthi Issue Warning on Surge of PRC Automobile Exports and the CCP’s Strategy to Dominate the Global Market

Last Tuesday, Chairman Gallagher, Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) sent a letter to the United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Katherine Tai, with concern about the Chinese Communist Party's potential plan to flood the US market with automobiles, particularly electric vehicles.

The lawmakers write that the PRC auto industry has been "propped up by massive subsidies and long-standing localization and other discriminatory policies employed by the PRC," and believe that urgent action is needed to counter the PRC’s unfair practices and ensure that automakers and auto workers are able to compete on a level playing field, both here in the United States and globally in this critical industry.

The members request that "the Office of the United States Trade Representative consider whether to launch a new Section 301 investigation into these practices and the harm they pose to the American automotive industry and American workers..." and urge Ambassador Tai to consider "what actions should be taken to counter the PRC’s industrial strategy to dominate the global automobile market."

View the lawmaker's full letter to Ambassador Tai HERE or read below.

Gallagher, Bost Launch Inquiry into VA's Effort to End Chinese Supply Chain Dependency

Last Wednesday, Chairman Gallagher and Charmian Mike Bost (R-IL) of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee wrote to Secretary Denis McDonough of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to ensure the VA is terminating its reliance on the Chinese Communist Party for medical supplies that are critical for the care of our veterans.

After the CCP withheld critical medical supply exports to the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, the VA collaborated with the Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security to create the National Strategy for a Resilient Public Health Supply Chain -- as a way to end dependence on China.

Gallagher and Bost describe the report as, "[I]including very little detail as to when and how the strategy will be implemented. Like so many other government reports, we are concerned that this report is gathering dust on a shelf and failing to translate to action."

The lawmakers continue, "If our reliance on Chinese manufacturing and our lack of sufficient domestic production are not properly addressed, our public health supply chain will remain at risk of manipulation by the CCP, putting Americans in danger in future emergencies."

View the full letter to the VA HERE.