House Moves to Create Committee to Investigate CCP’s Efforts to Undermine US

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) speaks to reporters after a House Republican Caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 21, 2021. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The House of Representatives is passing a resolution that will allow for the creation of a new congressional committee to investigate the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to undermine the United States and advise on methods of countering it.

House Resolution 11, “Establishing the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party,” will create a 16-member, bipartisan committee chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.).

The move comes amid increasing reports, including from the Pentagon, that the CCP, which rules China as a single-party state, seeks to undermine and displace the United States as the world’s greatest superpower.

“The threat posed by the CCP is not abstract,” Gallagher said on the House floor before the vote to create the committee. “The CCP’s aggression is not limited to Taiwan, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, or even Xinjiang, where two successive administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, have determined that the CCP is engaging in genocide.”

“The Select Committee will expose the CCP’s coordinated, whole-of-society strategy to undermine American leadership and American sovereignty while working a bipartisan basis and with committee’s jurisdiction to identify long overdue common sense approached to counter CCP aggression.”

The move to establish the committee received widespread bipartisan support, and will be staffed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers dedicated to uncovering and countering the malign influence of the CCP.

“One of the greatest worries about the future is that we fall behind communist China,” said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). “The fact of the matter is the danger posed by our dependence on China is dire.”

“Here’s the good news: There is bipartisan consensus that the era of trusting communist China is over.”

“The threat is too great for us to bicker amongst ourselves. The future should be determined by us,” McCarthy said.

The Select Committee was announced on Dec. 8 and, though the committee will not have legislative jurisdiction, will seek to investigate the CCP’s strategy and malign influence and inform Congress of methods to counter such.

The committee garnered additional support from Democrats for its focus on clarifying that malign influence was emanating from the CCP, and not from the Chinese people themselves, who are most frequently those worst victimized by the CCP.

“As an Asian American who represents the only Asian majority district in the continental United States, I would never support a committee that I thought would engage in xenophobia or attacks on the Chinese people,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

“I am pleased that this committee is not directed against China but is directed against the Chinese Communist Party.”

Gallagher previously vowed that the effort would build out a bipartisan front to combat Chinese communist aggression, and dedication to that mission was on display on the House floor ahead of the vote to create the committee, with representatives of both parties acknowledging the threat posed by the CCP.

“The bottom line is communist China is a serious generational threat that we must address before it’s too late,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-La.) on the House floor.

“That’s why the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party is critical.”

“This Select Committee has the ability to do some substantive work,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). “There is a bipartisan group here in this house that for years has been focused on holding China accountable.”

“In theory this is a committee that we should all get behind and I hope that it is successful... I am going to vote for this because I think that it is the right thing to do.”