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Republicans Launch Legislative Broadside Against China

Posted on Thursday, December 3, 2020
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by Outside Contributor
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RepublicansAmerica’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party-State has entered a new age — and it’s about time. The Trump administration over the past four years jettisoned the conventional wisdom that once saw the CCP like any other geopolitical competitor, whose authoritarianism and pretensions to global dominance were just another portfolio to be managed.

Beijing itself has also shattered the old American illusions about its rise as it sought to gaslight the world about the coronavirus pandemic’s origins, strangled democracy in Hong Kong, and built a system of industrial-scale prison camps in China’s West. Today’s emerging consensus endorses a no-holds-barred competition with the Party across numerous interconnected areas.

As congressional Republicans fear the reversal of Trump-era gains under the incoming Biden administration, they’re releasing today a suite of legislation designed to codify and expand on them. Information about the legislative push was provided exclusively to National Review ahead of its Thursday-afternoon launch by the Republican Study Committee, the 150-member caucus of conservatives in the House of Representatives that’s leading the charge.

“Republicans must stay united to keep up the same level of pressure on China as we had under Trump the last four years, and these pieces of legislation proposed first by the Republican Study Committee are part of our plan to do that,” said Representative Jim Banks, who will lead the group next year.

The proposals, which span everything from China’s IP theft to prohibiting the use of U.S. funds to purchase goods made by Chinese-military-linked enterprises, are the direct outgrowth of a June 2020 RSC report that called for numerous legislative changes to compete with China. And they complement the work of the House GOP’s China Task Force.

Among the most notable of the RSC proposals is a bill introduced by Representative Steve Chabot that creates an entire category of sanctions to deter the theft of intellectual property by Chinese firms.

Combating IP theft has been a hallmark of the Trump administration’s work on national security. In 2018, the Justice Department established its China Initiative, a program focused on investigating and prosecuting the theft of trade secrets by individuals spying for the Chinese government. During a speech at the Hudson Institute this year, FBI director Chris Wray revealed that his agency opens “a China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours.”

The RSC bill expands on these efforts, directing the Treasury Department to create a list of IP-related crimes carried out on behalf of the CCP and to sanction the perpetrators. “Taking these steps is the only way to ensure that the Chinese Government takes us seriously, and realizes that the United States will no longer tolerate the continuation of such crimes,” Chabot said in a statement to NR.

Although this bill, in addition to others that will be introduced by Representatives Debbie Lesko and Ken Buck, aim to protect American businesses from IP theft, they implicate other crucial issues.

“Members of the RSC are putting the Chinese Communist Party on notice that Congress will not tolerate their continued theft of intellectual property and human-rights abuses,” Representative Joe Wilson, who leads the group’s national-security task force, told National Review, drawing a link between the two issues. All of this is to say that the theft of intellectual property doesn’t just harm American companies; it also contributes to Chinese military research, and stolen technologies have played a role in the CCP’s human-rights atrocities.

It’s an important reminder as Joe Biden prepares to take office. It remains to be seen whether his administration intends to adopt the key Trump administration framework of linking seemingly distinct issues in the U.S.-China relationship. As the RSC’s members, the White House, State Department, and others have laid out in a number of documents over the past several months, no single issue in the U.S.-China relationship can be tackled in isolation.

If Biden seeks negotiations with China over climate change, as many analysts and observers in the president-elect’s orbit have urged, the Chinese would almost certainly ask for concessions in other areas. The same goes for cooperation on the COVID-19 pandemic and getting the support of the People’s Republic for U.S. initiatives at the U.N.

China hawks might be encouraged by Biden’s apparent embrace of a more stringent U.S. policy toward the People’s Republic — his campaign, for example, pledged to designate the Xinjiang mass atrocities a genocide and push back against the Chinese censorship regime’s emergence on U.S. soil — but they might miss the Trump team’s unequivocal stand against China’s malign activities around the world.

The sense that the CCP is a global threat that must be confronted is one nevertheless shared by Republicans and Democrats alike on the Hill — most recently, the House passed bipartisan legislation to delist foreign companies from U.S. stock exchanges that fail to certify their independence from foreign powers, a move that primarily targets Chinese firms. The two parties also share a similar resolve to confront Beijing’s trampling of human rights.

They diverge in some other key respects, though. One RSC proposal likely to face pushback from Democrats would prevent the U.S. government from issuing visas to senior CCP officials and officers in the People’s Liberation Army.

This is a significantly narrower proposal than one considered by the Trump administration to ban the Party’s over 90 million members from entering the United States. Still, visa restrictions targeting Chinese researchers with potential military ties have previously been met by charges of xenophobia and racism.

With little time left before the adjournment of the current session, these bills stand scant chance of becoming law — or even getting a vote — in the near future. But they set a benchmark, and draw partisan lines of battle, for future debate about how best to push back against the CCP during the Biden presidency.

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Bill Brown
Bill Brown
4 years ago

Conservatives are starting to doubt that the Republican Party is their HOME!  Republican Study Committee is 150 out of 199 Republican Members of the House.  Where are the other 49?!!  From the traitors Paul Ryan and Romney, etc., many Republicans are Conservatives “IN NAME ONLY“!!! Whether under this new Banner or under the FreedomWorks.org Banner, together with the TRUMP Movement, it is time to form “The Freedom Party” with our Eagle as its Symbol!!! We will NEVER succeed against the DemocRat/Communists tied down with the hidden “Republican/Communists”!!! Join the Trump Movement – The American Revolution 2.0!!! Become a Counter-Revolutionary!!! Stand-up for Our Republic!!!! Remove Every DemocRat/Communist!!!!!

Bill Brown
Bill Brown
4 years ago

Americans, we are being BRAINWASHED NOW for over 100 years by the Socialists/Communists, AEA, News Media, Swamp, Entertainment Industry, NPR, etc. LYING to us about Socialism and destroying our own Self Confidence!! Join the Trump Movement – The American Revolution 2.0!!! Become a Counter-Revolutionary!!! Stand-up for Our Republic!!!! Remove Every DemocRat/Communist!!!!!

PaulE
PaulE
4 years ago

The last paragraph of this article says it all:

“With little time left before the adjournment of the current session, these bills stand scant chance of becoming law — or even getting a vote — in the near future. But they set a benchmark, and draw partisan lines of battle, for future debate about how best to push back against the CCP during the Biden presidency.”

This is pure political posturing by a Republican party that to date has been unwilling to stand up and support President Trump’s efforts at getting the illegal activities by Democrats in the November 3rd election exposed and overturned. The silence coming from the establishment Republican party is deafening!

Under a Biden administration, the Chinese will get whatever they want, whenever they want one way or another. There are many ways to circumvent a Republican controlled Senate, even if by some chance they all stood united in opposition to everything the Biden administration will want. We already see several so-called Republican Senators “reaching across the aisle” or “open to compromise” (code for capitulation to Democrat demands). No one here is interested in empty “drawing partisan lines of battle” or setting the stage for “future devate about how best to push back against the CCP during a Biden presidency”. That is just more code for useless political posturing.

NeverBiden
NeverBiden
4 years ago

Biden’s embarrasingly stated in his Tapper interview that any US agreement with Iran required the agreement of Russia and China ?
Such a fool. Trump made it clear that we did not need anyone’s approval. Biden is clear. He will do only what other nations allow
us to do.
B….S

NeverBiden
NeverBiden
4 years ago

Biden states he is worried about our image. Our image is what we tell the world it is. We DO NOT….DO NOT ask for permission.

NeverBiden
NeverBiden
4 years ago

Gotta give the Chicoms credit. They developed the China Virus to screw Trump as they realized that Trump did not “play by the
dimocrat rules” They are devoted to the agreement with the dims that they will loan us any amount of money to provide
communist programs in the US ( interest rate ??) . In return we will shut down US manufacturing so that these jobs are given to China.
The dims want communism. Thats the deal. Simple. At what point do the Chicoms say ” We got cha. You will do what we demand”
A takeover without a fight. Fools we are. Just hang around.

Daniel Penny
biden and harris speaking in black and white
A row of supercomputers running simulations of quantum cryptography algorithms to test their efficiency and effectiveness
President Joe Biden, son Hunter Biden and sister Valerie Biden walk across the South Lawn of The White House on July 28, 2024 in Washington, DC. President Biden is returning from a weekend trip to Camp David. (Photo by Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

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