UPDATE 3-U.S. House panel on China cites ‘existential struggle’ at first hearing

(Provides testimony from listening to)

By Patricia Zengerle and Michael Martina

WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) – A new U.S. congressional choose committee on competition with China held its initially hearing with a target on human rights on Tuesday, amid tense bilateral ties weeks just after a suspected spy balloon traveling about North The us was shot down.

“This is not a well mannered tennis match. This is an existential battle around what lifetime will look like in the 21st century – and the most basic freedoms are at stake,” Agent Mike Gallagher, Republican chairman of the Property of Reps Find Committee on the Chinese Communist Bash (CCP), reported as he opened the listening to.

The committee’s leaders noticed the listening to, the to start with of what is expected to be numerous above the future two yrs as Republicans hold handle of the Household, as component of an hard work to convince Us citizens why they need to treatment about competing with China, and to “selectively decouple” the U.S. and Chinese economies.

“About the last 3 decades, equally Democrats and Republicans underestimated the CCP, and assumed that trade and financial investment would inevitably direct to democracy and larger security in the Indo-Pacific… As a substitute the opposite took place,” stated Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the best Democrat on the select committee, in his opening remarks.

Chinese dissidents attended the listening to. In the previous number of days, Gallagher and other committee associates held several activities to attract awareness to human legal rights considerations, such as a rally on Saturday outside the house what U.S. officers get in touch with an illegal Chinese Communist Party “police station” in New York.

Gallagher sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation final week in search of information and facts about these kinds of alleged law enforcement outposts.

China denies operating “police stations” on U.S. soil.

‘GREAT CHINESE FIREWALL’

Tuesday’s listening to had 4 witnesses, which includes H.R. McMaster, a retired Military lieutenant normal who was previous Republican President Donald Trump’s countrywide stability adviser, and Matt Pottinger, a lengthy-time China hawk who was deputy national safety adviser to Trump.

Tale proceeds

McMaster mentioned the United States ought to set a precedence on expediting shipping of billions of bucks of weapons and munitions that Taiwan has previously bought. “As we might have acquired from Ukraine’s working experience, it is considerably more cost-effective to discourage a war than to battle one,” he claimed in his written testimony.

In a nod to escalating U.S. concerns about China’s affect on technology, Pottinger reported the U.S. government should really lover with American technologies firms that are banned in China and locate a way for men and women in China to circumvent the country’s rigorous Net censorship.

“I think you could punch holes in the good Chinese firewall,” Pottinger reported.

In his penned testimony, Pottinger wrote that the committee have to secure the rights of Chinese Us residents by “standing up in opposition to bigotry and discrimination below at property.”

“Secure, also, Chinese nationals learning and performing in the United States so they can get pleasure from the freedoms that so starkly distinguish the American way of everyday living from the ever more oppressive ambiance in China nowadays,” Pottinger claimed.

Whilst the committee is bipartisan, some Democratic lawmakers have voiced concerns that it could gasoline anti-Asian sentiment within just the United States. Krishnamoorthi referred to this sort of fears, and the will need for bipartisanship, in his remarks.

Also testifying were Tong Yi, a dissident who was jailed in China for much more than two a long time, and Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Tong, a naturalized U.S. citizen, recounted her time in a Chinese labor camp following she was convicted of disturbing social buy for her ties to democracy activists in the 1990s.

Paul termed for an end to U.S. dependence on Chinese producing.

A desire for a tricky line in dealings with Beijing is a single of the several definitely bipartisan sentiments in the deeply divided U.S. Congress, with both equally Republicans and President Joe Biden’s Democrats calling for improved endeavours to counteract China’s international influence.

U.S.-China tensions have been primarily substantial of late, more than China’s significantly aggressive army posture toward Taiwan, talk that China may perhaps be supporting Russia’s war in opposition to Ukraine, and the U.S.’s capturing down on Feb. 4 a Chinese balloon suspected of spying more than U.S. territory.

Beijing has denied that the balloon was a govt spy vessel.

The select committee has 13 Republican and 11 Democratic customers. It will not publish laws, but will draw notice to competitors in between the United States and China on a variety of fronts and make plan recommendations. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Michael Martina Enhancing by Leslie Adler and Christopher Cushing)