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**FEBRUARY 6, 2023**

Kuttner on TAP

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**** Bipartisanship in the House

As the China menace keeps ballooning, the House Select Committee on
China appears to be a serious undertaking.

In a severely polarized Congress, one possible oasis of constructive
bipartisanship is the new House Select Committee on China, whose full
title refers to "Strategic Competition Between the United States and the
Chinese Communist Party." The chair is Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, one
of the non-MAGA House Republicans and a well-informed critic of Chinese
economic and geopolitical strategy.

Mike Wessel, a leading Democratic critic of China and of past U.S.
fantasies about Beijing, says, "Chairman Gallagher has shown he's
serious in the past and has reached across the aisle to address the
China challenge. His initial staffing decisions show that he's
bringing people in who can solve problems and are not simply seeking
partisan advantage. Clearly, we will have to see where things go, but
initial steps make me optimistic."

In fact, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has put none of the usual-suspect
lunatic-right Republicans on the committee.

The ranking Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, is a respected
China expert, who is also on the House Intelligence Committee. He has
been the lead Democratic sponsor of several bills aimed at containing
China, including legislation co-sponsored with Gallagher that would bar
TikTok
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from the U.S. Other Krishnamoorthi legislation would require a National
Intelligence Estimate on China's strategy of buying up port facilities
worldwide.

Gallagher has identified several key issues for the committee, including
cybersecurity, inbound and outbound investment, China's menacing of
Taiwan, its access to advanced technology and theft of intellectual
property, purchases of farmland and real estate, as well as trade and
supply chain concerns. That's certainly the right list.

China policy has been one of the few areas of genuine bipartisanship,
beginning with the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
<[link removed]>, whose reports and hearings have functioned
since its creation by Congress late in the Clinton era in 2000 as a kind
of opposition party to naïve WTO-centered globalism, and continuing
with Trump's tough stand on China, in contrast to his indulgence of
Russia and Putin.

The commission's hearings, research studies, and annual reports
provide a complementary agenda to the committee's work. James Mann, a
respected China expert who is a member of the U.S.-China Commission (and
author of the prescient 2007

**American Prospect** piece "America's China Fantasy
<[link removed]>"), tells me
that the bipartisan Select China Committee could be very useful as long
as Republicans resist the temptation to use it for fishing expeditions
against Democrats.

That seems unlikely. Kevin McCarthy needs this fig leaf of
bipartisanship; Gallagher is serious about his mission; and if the
committee did degenerate into partisan cheap shots, its Democratic
members would be gone in a heartbeat.

Biden's several industrial policies
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were the work of a bipartisan alliance, much of it motivated by concerns
about China and the growing reliance of the U.S. economy on China's
supply chains. Some of the 65 Democrats who voted against the
committee's creation expressed skepticism about Republican good faith.
Twenty-three progressives led by Pramila Jayapal cited the risk of
anti-Asian xenophobia
<[link removed]>.
This also seems unlikely, with Krishnamoorthi as ranking Democrat and
Andy Kim of New Jersey as a member.

Rep. Jim McGovern, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, created
political space for most Democrats to back the panel when he announced
his own support early. McGovern told reporters, "If not your usual
looking-for-conspiracy-theories and promoting xenophobia, then something
good can come out of it."

On the whole, the Biden China policy has been excellent, intensifying
the strategy of quarantining Beijing's access to advanced technology,
and resisting China's military incursions, while working
diplomatically to prevent a shooting war. Yet part of the Biden
administration, notably Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and some of the
career staff at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, remain
wedded to wishful globalism and the premise that China will evolve into
a market democracy if America just makes nice. The bipartisan select
committee will provide a useful counterweight.

At a time when House Republicans are mostly descending into the worst
kind of partisan demagoguery, the China committee is a reminder of
what's possible.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

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