WASHINGTON—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says he'll lead a bipartisan delegation of senators to China, which would make him the latest senior U.S. official to visit the country, as tensions between the world’s two top powers continue to rise.
Mr. Schumer declined to share details about his trip, which follows a number of visits to the country by top Biden administration officials such as Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“I’m not going to get into my China trip,” he told reporters on Sept. 13 following a forum on artificial intelligence (AI). He did say that Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) has been “one of the leaders” spearheading the trip.
It’s unclear when the trip, which would include stops in Japan and South Korea, will take place.
In recent months, four top U.S. officials have gone to China to revive trade and military ties as the administration pursues a policy of engagement alongside de-risking.
Mr. Schumer, who has pushed for a tougher stance on China, helped last year to direct tens of billions of dollars to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry through the CHIPS and Science Act. In May, he directed Democrats to unveil a legislative plan dubbed China Competition Bill 2.0 to further strengthen U.S. manufacturing and limit the flow of technology to China.
Mr. Schumer began the AI Insight Forum on Sept. 13 by warning about the danger of China gaining an edge on the technology.
“Other governments, including adversaries like China, are investing huge resources to get ahead,“ he said. ”We could fall behind, to the detriment of our national security.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who chairs the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, says he’s skeptical that the delegation is “going to be able to do a robust trip.”
“It just depends on their itinerary, which I haven’t seen yet,” he told reporters on Sept. 13.
“A lot of people would ask us if we’re going to go to China, and I said, ‘I have no interest in sitting in a room getting lectured by CCP officials,’” he told The Epoch Times. He noted that he has reservations about how much control that the U.S. lawmakers would have over their travel schedule in the communist country.
“I'd be curious to see what they actually plan to do,” he said. If they go, he said, the delegation should bring a message that “the United States Congress, in bipartisan fashion, strongly condemns the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang,” the increasing aggression directed at Taiwan, and the “economic coercion ... against our allies, including what the CCP is trying to do to Japan.”
When then-House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a high-profile trip to Taiwan in August 2022—becoming the first U.S. House Speaker to do so in 25 years—the regime retaliated by suspending regular contact with the U.S. military.
Mr. Gallagher, who was supportive of Ms. Pelosi’s Taiwan visit and had made such a trip in February himself, says a Taiwan stopover by Mr. Schumer’s delegation would “be great.”
“The more elected officials that go there—[to] see the vibrant democracy in Taiwan [and] also see the geographic challenges involved in a potential PLA [China’s People’s Liberation Army] invasion of Taiwan—the better we'll be able to design policy here to help Taiwan defend itself.”
Mr. Schumer’s office didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
