Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has urged Washington to strategically decouple from China to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “vast points of pressure and influence” in the U.S. political system.
“Unfortunately, China and its growing economy have spread its tentacles throughout American society, to the extent that they have a vast and influential lobby in the corridors of power in Washington,” Cotton said on Feb. 16.
Such activities need to be called out for what they are, Cotton said.
For a Wall Street bank, a Hollywood studio, a manufacturing company whose production locates in China, or a university president who relies on tuition income from Chinese students, “we need to state publicly that you [they] are, in effect, becoming a lobbyist for the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
“What they [CCP] have done is essentially adopted a strategy which says, ‘We’re going to co-opt the elites.’ If you can co-opt the elites and the decision-makers in the United States, you are effectively cutting off the head of the person you’re fighting,” he said.
In Schweizer’s view, the CCP has been “very successful” in Washington, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence told The Epoch Times in a written statement, “The CCP has effectively identified the ‘Five Spheres’ of American influence: academia, professional sports, Hollywood, media, and big tech platforms, which they continuously exploit and prey on in an attempt to influence American thinking from within.”
According to Fitzpatrick, other means include “overt and covert manipulation of media, economic coercion, and disinformation campaigns” in the United States.
‘China-Free Supply Chain’
The passing of the America COMPETES Act of 2022, the House counterpart of the Senate U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), on Feb. 4 was an event that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) didn’t want to see. In fact, it was an outcome opposite to what its letter campaign advocated.“Promoting a China-free supply chain will inevitably result in a decline in China’s demand for U.S. products and American companies loss of market share and revenue in China,” said the letter from the Chinese Embassy in Washington to U.S. companies, executives, and business groups. According to Reuters, some American businessmen also met with Chinese embassy staff who conveyed a similar message.
In addition, the letter asked the recipients to urge members of Congress to alter or drop “negative China-related bills.” Two of the bills named in the letters—USICA and EAGLE Act in the House (which later got subsumed into the America COMPETES Act)—share a common purpose of enhancing America’s competitiveness over China.
Albeit with differences, both the USICA and America COMPETES Act authorize $24 billion to incentive programs for semiconductor production in the United States and $1.5 billion for wireless supply chain innovation in the fiscal year 2022. The next step is for both chambers of Congress to negotiate a converged version for President Joe Biden to sign into law.
Both of the bills also authorize funding for combating China’s information operations and provide assistance to U.S. companies diversifying their supply chains outside of China.
“If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it is that it is important to diversify production of goods away from China, and where possible, back to the United States, so we have a reliable industrial base,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told The Epoch Times in a written statement.
