13 Republicans named to new US committee on China by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy
- Democrats will appoint up to seven members to the panel, which will investigate ‘the Chinese Communist Party’s … competition with the United States’
- The committee cannot make or amend laws but can hold public hearings and is required to submit policy recommendations by the end of the year
The new House select committee on China began to take form late on Monday when US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy named the 13 Republican members who will serve on it.
The members are from geographically diverse backgrounds and represent the range of the Republican ideological spectrum. Many of McCarthy’s picks are closely tied to agricultural and defence interests, and several are known China hawks, though others have not been as outspoken.
The 13 Republican members of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party are: its chairman, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin; Rob Wittman of Virginia; Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri; Andy Barr of Kentucky; Dan Newhouse of Washington; John Moolenaar of Michigan; Darin LaHood of Illinois; Neal Dunn of Florida; Jim Banks of Indiana; Dusty Johnson of South Dakota; Michelle Steel of California; Ashley Hinson of Iowa; and Carlos Giménez of Florida.
The Democrats have yet to name their committee appointments, which will be no more than seven members. Some Asian-American lawmakers – noting the rise in anti-Asian violence in recent years – have pushed House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to appoint one from their caucus to head the Democratic contingent.
The committee is tasked with investigating and submitting recommendations on “the status of the Chinese Communist Party’s economic, technological, and security progress and its competition with the United States”.
It has no legislative authority – it cannot make or amend laws – but has the authority to hold public hearings “in connection with any aspect of its investigative functions”. The committee is required to submit policy recommendations to standing committees by the end of 2023.
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Five of the Republican members served on McCarthy’s China task force: Gallagher, Wittman, Barr, Dunn and Banks.
Hailing the “consensus that the era of trusting Communist China is over”, McCarthy said in a speech to the House this month that he was intent on making the committee bipartisan.
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McCarthy also said he wanted “serious lawmakers” and that the committee “isn’t for someone to go in and go viral because they want to make a point”. He noted that the panel would play a coordinating function among all existing committees with China-related policy issues.
A December column written by McCarthy and Gallagher cited as panel objectives prohibiting investments in China; identifying areas of overdependence on the country; combating intellectual property theft; highlighting the Communist Party’s influence operations; and deterring military aggression.
After the announcement, Newhouse, an agricultural scientist representing a farming-heavy district in Washington state, said he would “continue leading the charge against the CCP’s efforts to buy up American farmland”.
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Banks, an ultraconservative military veteran who previously chaired the Republican Study Committee, has been especially vocal about ideological competition with China.
Barr sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over a significant portfolio of China-related legislation and investigations. He was one of numerous representatives who visited Taiwan following then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit in August.
Gallagher and LaHood, a chair of the bipartisan US-China Working Group, will also serve on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which is tasked with oversight of the US government’s intelligence activities.
Gallagher has been particularly outspoken about the threat that TikTok, the Chinese short video app, poses to US national security.
Steel recently served on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which advises Congress on human rights and rule of law developments in China.
Giménez, who represents an ardently anti-Communist constituency south of Miami, said on Tuesday that he looked forward to working on the committee “as a Cuban exile, who lost my native homeland to a barbaric Communist dictatorship”.
