Republicans’ “China Week” – CounterPunch.org

Photo by Catgirlmutant.

“China Week” sounds like a time to celebrate Chinese culture and food. But for House Republicans, it’s all about politics. They seem to think that attacking China will do well in the election, so they went all out last week, passing more than two dozen pieces of legislation.

Democrats have joined them on some votes. A vote to punish China is a safe bet. “The best way to get something done in Washington is to frame it” as China or national security, said Rory Murphy, who recently left his post as vice president of government affairs at the U.S.-China Business Council. “There are no political consequences for being too tough on China,” he added.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, announced the bills in a July speech, saying China posed “the greatest threat to peace in the world” and that “Congress must focus on countering China with every tool at our disposal.” It’s Cold War-era language, though it differs from earlier criticisms of Russia in one key respect: China is not just a key strategic adversary; it is a supplier of vital goods—human, financial, and mineral resources.

Bills

Here are the bills passed by the House of Representatives:

* A biosecurity act to bar U.S. federal agencies from entering into contracts with five Chinese biotech companies and their customers. It would also establish an interagency process to identify additional companies. Biotech executives have argued that disengaging from the companies would contribute to widespread drug shortages in the U.S. So the House extended a deadline to January 2032 to halt existing contracts with those Chinese companies.

* The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Certification Act would close Hong Kong’s representative offices in the U.S. In a near-unanimous vote, the House decided to show solidarity with pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong by closing those offices whose primary purpose is to promote trade.

* A bill requiring Senate ratification of any World Health Organization pandemic preparedness agreement. Republican defenders of the bill say it’s about American “self-determination,” meaning “don’t let an international agency dictate whether to wear masks or get vaccinated.”

* The revival of the China Initiative, a failed Justice Department and FBI program that was designed to catch mostly ethnic Chinese American scientists who were allegedly stealing secrets for China. President Biden abandoned the program amid accusations that it racially profiled innocent scientists. Only one scientist, notably a non-Chinese, has been successfully prosecuted under the China Initiative, but the lives of many Chinese American scientists have been severely disrupted.

* A bill that would prohibit tax breaks for people who purchased electric vehicles that contain parts manufactured or assembled by an entity in China, Russia, North Korea or Iran.

* A bill that restricts the sale of farmland to foreigners from China, as well as Russia, North Korea and Iran. Again, unintentional immigrants would be caught in the bill, while Saudi Arabian nationals who bought land in Arizona and helped create the water crisis would not be affected. The bill would also withhold some federal funding from universities that partner with Beijing-backed research institutes—another go-to network like the China Initiative.

* A bill that would cut federal funding for colleges with Confucius Institutes on the grounds that these Chinese-funded cultural and language programs (according to the Texas Republican) were conducting “widespread military espionage in the United States.” That charge has been thoroughly investigated and found to be unfounded.

Other bills would seek to prevent the government from purchasing Chinese batteries and drone equipment.

Weak bills but still harmful

Some Democrats believe Republicans have passed the wrong bills. What they should have passed, said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), a ranking member of the House China Committee, were bills to truly improve the U.S. economy. “Nothing to fix our industrial supply base, nothing on critical minerals, nothing to fix our legal immigration system to make us more competitive, nothing to invest in science and innovation, nothing to improve the skills of our workforce,” Krishnamoorthi said. “And so China Week becomes nothing without initiatives like this.” Even a bill to close a loophole that allowed fentanyl imports was not introduced by House leadership. He could have added that some of these bills are cutting off our noses to spite our faces.

Needless to say, China is protesting the House bills. The Chinese embassy calls them “new McCarthyism” that “interferes in China’s internal affairs, violates China’s sovereignty, and slanders China’s image.” An embassy spokesman said in a statement Friday that the legislation’s passage “will cause serious disruption to China-U.S. relations… and will inevitably damage the interests, image, and credibility of the United States itself.”

The primary goal of these bills is to demonstrate that the Republican Party is the only one that can be trusted to confront China and defend national security. However, all of the bills will need to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate to become law. Few will; but if Trump wins in November and Republicans take control of Congress, expect most of the bills to resurface as part of a major economic decoupling from China, justified by the exaggeration of the Chinese threat.