China Select Committee to Hold First Hearing on ‘Existential Struggle’ With CCP

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) speaks at a press conference and rally in front of the America ChangLe Association highlighting Beijing's transnational repression, in New York City, on Feb. 25, 2023. A now-closed overseas Chinese police station is located inside the association building. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

A new congressional committee dedicated to gaining strategic advantage over China’s communist regime will hold its debut hearing on Feb. 28.

The House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will convene in the evening for a hearing titled “The Chinese Communist Party’s Threat to America.”

Committee Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) described the competition between the United States and CCP as an existential threat.

“We have been charged by Speaker McCarthy with injecting a sense of urgency into this competition with the CCP,” Gallagher said during a Feb. 28 press briefing on the matter.

“And though we call it a ’strategic competition,' it is not a polite tennis match. This is an existential struggle over what type of world we want to live in.”

To that end, Gallagher said the hearing would serve to set the tone and direction of the Select Committee, establishing why the CCP is an imminent threat to the United States and how the Select Committee can chart a more secure course for the nation.

“We’re doing some level-setting here: Why should someone care about the threat posed by the CCP?” Gallagher said.

“Or, to put it differently, what did we get wrong about the Chinese Communist Party, and what do we need to get right about it so as to have a more successful and enduring strategy going forward?”

Witnesses at the hearing will include former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, former Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, human rights advocate Tong Yi, and President of the Alliance for American Manufacturing Scott Paul.

Gallagher said that the first hearing would also focus on unpacking the Chinese communist regime’s human rights abuses, and how the Select Committee could position itself as a coordinating body for the many oftentimes unrelated China bills that float around Congress.

“We want to lead with that sort of human rights-focused, values-focused agenda,” Gallagher said. “And that’s an area of unity, too, for a lot of Democrats and Republicans.

“I think we can play a constructive coordinating function between the committees to ensure that good ideas don’t die just because of some committee’s cracks or they get referred to multiple committees.”

Relatedly, Gallagher and other members of the Select Committee will also host an event in Washington prior to the hearing to honor the Hong Kong 47, free speech advocates who were arrested by Beijing during the CCP’s authoritarian crackdown in 2021 and charged with conspiracy to subvert the communist regime.

Likewise, Gallagher previously said that the Select Committee’s human rights-focused approach would also seek to hold American corporations accountable for their ties to the CCP.

The comments follow the release of a report earlier this month by the Georgetown University Center for Security and Emerging Technology, which found U.S. firms were still investing tens of billions of dollars into China’s AI sector, effectively supercharging the regime’s civil and military development.

To that end, Gallagher said the committee would call on American executives, including Disney CEO Bob Iger and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, for testimony.

“I’d be willing to go out and sit down with them where they are and engage in a discussion, but we want to have a discussion in front of the American people,” Gallagher said during a Jan. 11 interview on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.

Gallagher, who previously described the bipartisan Select Committee as Congress’ “best and brightest,” added that the body would use its wide array of skills and backgrounds to expose and stop communist China’s assault on the U.S.-led world order.

“My colleagues chosen to serve on the Select Committee come from a wide range of committees and backgrounds and will use their unique expertise to expose the CCP’s strategy to undermine American leadership,” Gallagher said in a Jan. 25 email to The Epoch Times.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.