US bills targeting China AI and Hong Kong offices clear key House panel amid call for ‘bold new ideas’

Additional legislation would bolster American cooperation with India, Japan and Australia as part of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy

Bills authorising further action meant to protect human rights of China’s Tibetan and Uygur populations also pass

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The US Congress is moving to place further restrictions on Chinese technology amid fears over artificial intelligence developments. Photo: Shutterstock

Khushboo Razdan,Robert DelaneyandBochen Hanin Washington

Published: 1:32am, 30 Nov 2023Updated: 1:12am, 1 Dec 2023

Several pieces of US legislation targeting China – including one that could close Hong Kong’s representative offices in America and another that would all but block US investment in China’s AI and other hi-tech sectors – cleared a key congressional committee on Wednesday.

A bill that would bolster Washington’s cooperation with India, Japan and Australia and others that would authorise further action aimed at protecting China’s Tibetan and Uygur populations from alleged human rights abuses also passed without objection.

None of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s 51 members voted “no”, according to an electronic poll held later in the day on some of the bills.

The results underscored strong bipartisan interest in Washington in sending a message to Beijing, despite recent closer engagement between Biden administration officials and their Chinese counterparts.

That engagement was on display at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in San Francisco earlier this month, where US President Joe Biden met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in person for the first time in a year.

The two agreed to cooperate in curbing the fentanyl trade, engage in managing artificial intelligence, resume military-to-military contacts and maintain the status quo on Taiwan.