At Hearing on China, Oversight Democrats Laud Biden-Harris Administration’s Cohesive Strategy to Combat Authoritarian Threats

Washington, D.C. (September 25, 2024)—Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, led Committee Democrats in examining how the Biden-Harris Administration has worked to combat the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s rising authoritarianism by defending democratic institutions and investing in America.

“Putin, Xi, Trump, and Hungary’s tyrant Victor Orbán—who had a slumber party at Mar-a-Lago when he was in town promoting illiberal democracy, which means mob rule without rights and freedom—are the new axis of autocrats attacking American democracy and freedom and human rights all over the world.  This is the real ‘political warfare’ taking place against America,” said Ranking Member Raskin in his opening statement.  Ranking Member Raskin continued, “Contrary to [Trump’s] craven submission to foreign dictators and make-believe, the Biden-Harris Administration and Democrats in Congress have taken a strong stand for democracy against all the autocrats and totalitarians, including the CCP, responding aggressively to the economic, security, and ideological challenges posed by China, including by investing in our competitiveness, our innovation, and our democracy.”   

The hearing included testimony from Mr. Jacob Stokes, Senior Fellow, Center for New American Security; Mr. Robert D. Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation; The Honorable Joseph Cella, Former U.S. Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu; and Dr. Bradley A. Thayer, Founding Member, Committee on the Present Danger: China.

Committee Democrats examined the Biden-Harris Administration’s cohesive strategy to detect, deter, and defeat CCP efforts to undermine American national security.

• Mr. Stokes explained that the Biden-Harris Administration has a multi-pronged national security strategy as it engages in strategic competition with China.  Mr. Stokes said:  “I would say it’s [all] strategic competition.  There’s more of an emphasis on building up alliances and partnerships.  You’ve seen the progress with the Quad.  You’ve seen AUKUS.  You’ve seen revival of alliances with the Philippines and Japan and so on.  On the technological side, you’ve seen both affirmative efforts to improve the U.S. posture and CHIPS and Science Act, but also pretty extreme, at least in Beijing’s view, actions to slow down China’s technological rise.”
  
  
• Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton discussed the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act to American workers, explaining:  “Thanks to these landmark laws, American innovation is thriving and more people have high paying domestic manufacturing jobs.  Now, America is maintaining a competitive edge, [and an] advantage over China in strategic sectors by investing in our workforce and in American businesses.”  
  
  
• Rep. Shontel Brown emphasized how seriously the Biden-Harris Administration is taking the threat of political interference by the CCP, especially with respect to election interference, and said, “The Biden-Harris Administration is in overdrive, working to protect our elections and exposing these plots as they are uncovered.” 

Committee Democrats contrasted how Democrats fight for democracy while Republicans deliberately spread misinformation about China and align themselves with authoritarian ideologies.

• Rep. Robert Garcia highlighted that “[President] Joe Biden and [Vice President] Kamala Harris have united our allies against aggressive authoritarian states” in contrast to Former President Trump, who accepted cash from adversarial foreign governments like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and reportedly asked Chinese President Xi Jinping for help winning the 2020 election.  Mr. Stokes responded that it would be inappropriate for “any presidential candidate or president” to take money from a foreign government.
   
• In chronicling other instances of egregious political warfare involving the CCP that the Committee should be investigating, Rep. Dan Goldman stated:  “Let’s start with former President Trump, who acknowledged that he had a Chinese bank account that he used at least from 2013 to 2015, and his own lawyer said that it remained open throughout his presidency.  Or let's talk about Ivanka Trump’s fast track trademarks that she received in 2 months—18 of them—even though it usually takes 18 months.  Coincidentally, I’m sure, it happened right after Donald Trump intervened to save a sanctioned Chinese electronics maker ZTE.  And China’s biggest controlled banks, state-controlled bank, rented 3 floors in Trump Tower while Donald Trump was president, netting him $7 million.”  Rep. Goldman also pointed out that Trump poses a bigger risk to our national security and “is the one who accepts millions of dollars from foreign governments while he is president, and is the one who sucks up to dictators and despots all around the world who cannot even say that the democratic country of Ukraine should win the war against Vladimir Putin.”

Committee Democrats explained how Republicans’ narrow focus on China leaves the United States vulnerable to other threats and contributes to discrimination against Chinese Americans.

• Rep. Jasmine Crockett highlighted the need for a holistic approach to national security issues:  “The bigger picture is that it’s not China as an isolated bad actor.  What is really making and exacerbating this issue is the fact that China is teaming up with Russia, who is also teaming up with Iran.”  In response to a question from Rep. Crockett, none of the witnesses disagreed that China, Russia, and Iran were working in concert together. 
   
• Ranking Member Raskin pointed out the connection between the CCP and Russia and Republican witness Dr. Thayer admitted on the record that a victory for the people of Ukraine against Russian aggression would also be a blow to the CCP.  Dr. Thayer stated:  “It’s a critically important issue.  A loss to Russia, of course, would be a tremendous blow to Xi Jinping, who’s made Putin his meridian, right?”  He continued:  “Putin is a soldier executing the tasks assigned to him by Xi Jinping in essence.  We can recall, of course, the meeting that they had before the invasion in February 2022, where Xi Jinping gave him the green light.  So, Ukrainian defeat of Russia is a tremendous blow to communist China.” 
  
  
• Rep. Summer Lee emphasized the risk to Chinese Americans posed by a narrow focus on China:  “Only focusing on China and the CCP not only leaves us vulnerable to attacks from elsewhere, but it also poses a risk to the personal safety, civil rights, and civil liberties of Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants living in the U.S.  We saw this with the Trump Administration’s China Initiative.  They said this was meant to protect labs and businesses from espionage.  Instead, it was used as a tool of discrimination.  Nearly 90% of the more than 150 cases brought by the FBI under the initiative were against ethnically Chinese people and many of the cases were the result of simple administrative errors and no obvious connection to national security or the theft of intellectual property or trade secrets.”