China’s communist regime is engaged in a concerted effort to undermine and replace the United States as the world’s most powerful nation by weaponizing Americans against each other, U.S. lawmakers were told this week.
The House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convened on Feb. 28 for its first hearing, which was titled “The Chinese Communist Party’s Threat to America.”
Committee Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) described the competition between the United States and the CCP as an “existential struggle.” The Republican congressman said that the CCP, which rules China as a single-party state, is pitting “America against America,” hoping to topple the United States from within.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the panel’s ranking Democrat, agreed with the assessment, saying that the regime seeks to exploit political divisions in the United States that are endemic to democratic societies.
“The CCP wants us to be fractious, partisan, and prejudiced,” Krishnamoorthi said.
“We must rise to the occasion and prove them wrong.”
To that end, however, Gallagher noted that many powerful and monied interests within the United States had made their fortunes outsourcing U.S. jobs to China, and were pushing back on American efforts to secure itself against the regime.
“The CCP has found friends on Wall Street, in Fortune 500 C-suites, and on K Street who are ready and willing to oppose efforts to push back,” Gallagher said.
‘Tech-Powered Dystopia’
Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster testified on the issue, saying that the United States had “fallen behind” in the strategic competition with the CCP and that continued investments in China by U.S. corporations are “underwriting our own demise.”McMaster said that the “false promises of liberalization” had led to a corporate and political class within America that had largely expected continued investment in China to transform it into a more modern and democratic society.
Instead, he said, the regime has doubled down on its Marxist ideology and is now exporting destructive ideologies to erode support for the West.
To that end, McMaster said that a “curriculum of self-loathing,” which asserts that the United States is the reason for the world’s problems, has taken hold of much of the popular and academic culture in the West, and prevents the nation from adequately defending itself against continued espionage, theft, and repression by the CCP.
Likewise, Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) said that corporate America is concerned about the possibility of angering CCP officials, and the regime is exploiting that fear to undermine the United States on the world stage.
“China has a plan to replace the United States,” LaHood said.
As such, Gallagher said that the select committee would help to coordinate legislative efforts across congressional panels and focus on tackling the CCP’s ideological, technological, economic, and military efforts against the United States, its allies, and partners.
The time to prevent the CCP from replacing the United States with a “tech-powered dystopia” is now, Gallagher said.
“The CCP is laser-focused on its vision for the future,” Gallagher said. “A world crowded with techno-totalitarian surveillance states where human rights are subordinate to the whims of the Party.
CCP Preparing for War
In addition to seeking to replace the United States, the CCP is also preparing for war, committee members heard.About the issue of the regime’s ambition to invade Taiwan, former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger said that the CCP’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is preparing for such a conflict, including the possibility that it would have to fight the United States.
“The PLA has been receiving massive amounts of investment ... to try to fill gaps that they would need to fill to be able to invade Taiwan,” he said.
“We know that the PLA is training for the likelihood that the U.S. would be part of the fight.”
Those capabilities included amphibious and airlift platforms, missiles, and long-range assets designed to deter the United States from entering a war between the CCP and Taiwan’s democratic government.
Pottinger also noted that CCP leader Xi Jinping regularly praises former CCP leader Mao Zedong’s approval of using preemptive strikes against adversaries, and had expressed a willingness to see China destroyed in order to rebuild it without U.S. influence.
When asked whether the regime might attempt a preemptive attack on the United States to prevent it from coming to Taiwan’s aid, Pottinger said, “It’s possible.”
“There’s no longer any excuse for being fooled about Beijing’s intentions,” Pottinger said. “The canon of Chairman Xi’s publicly available statements is too voluminous, and the accumulated actions of his regime too brazen, to be misunderstood at this late hour.”
“The proverbial fig leaf has blown away, exposing the regime and its deep hostility toward the democratic West and the liberal international order.”
