The China Task Force
On April 26th, I published an essay citing why and how the United States must break China’s medical supply chain monopoly and, perhaps even more importantly, rebuild ours. I wrote that the COVID-19 crisis has revealed troubling cracks in our nation’s dependence on China for medical supplies and medicine, and that in the weeks ahead, there would be several legislative proposals aimed at filling the gaps and ensuring the United States’ medical fate is never again left in the hands of another country.
Today I am announcing the formation of the China Task Force. Whether it is due to the tangle of politics or a stagnating lack of will, our country has neglected the warnings, signs, and even direct threats from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for far too long.
In the past few weeks alone, China:
- Hid the severity of the virus and manipulated statistics, leaving the world reeling from a global pandemic
- Still refuses to allow international experts to investigate or share viral samples with the scientific community
- Forced the disappearance of whistleblowers
- Is carrying out a comprehensive propaganda campaign to spread misinformation
- Leveraged its supply chain monopoly for global influence
Research from the University of Southampton shows that 95 percent of the world’s current COVID-19 crisis could have been avoided if China simply acted like a responsible global citizen.
The death of hundreds of thousands of people and the shuttering of economies across the world as a result of the CCP’s ignorance and blatant disregard for human life shouldn’t have been what causes us to declare the last straw, but I sincerely hope it is.
The purpose of the China Task Force is to address the full stack of Chinese threats by bringing together key Members of Congress from the most relevant Congressional committees.
The task force will focus on the following challenges:
- Influence operations targeting U.S. and foreign governments and civil society, including think tanks, higher education, business, and media outlets.
- Export control regimes and foreign investment screening mechanisms in the United States, and efforts to coordinate and harmonize these regimes with partners.
- Chinese economic coercion of governments and businesses in the United States and partner countries, including through the monopolization of critical supply chains.
- China’s role in the origin and spread of COVID-19.
- China’s use of U.S. institutions to educate and train its citizens who then use their training to damage the national security of the United States.
- Chinese efforts to gain the technological advantage (in areas including 5G, AI, quantum computing, and other emerging technologies that may or may not have military applications).
- Chinese efforts to attain leadership positions and change norms at international organizations and standard-setting bodies.
The task force will meet regularly to receive briefings from experts and discuss appropriate recommendations. The end product will be a comprehensive report with legislative recommendations due by October 30th, 2020. These findings will be made public because it is you, the American people, who deserve to know most how your Congress plans to hold China accountable for past malpractice and how we plan to resist future abuses from the Chinese government.
Addressing past behavior is just one half of the work that needs to be done. We must take these lessons of the past and apply them to a changing future — a future that puts America and our allies first.
It is understandable to wonder why this wasn’t done long ago, when the CCP first threw at least one million Uighurs into a concentration camp, or when it first snuffed out the voices of thousands of Hongkongers fighting for democracy, or when it first began stealing American intellectual property, or when it first began committing dozens of other atrocities.
The truth is, my original plan about a year ago was to have a bipartisan coalition focused strictly on addressing the dynamic threat that is the rising influence of the CCP. When Majority Leader Steny Hoyer finally agreed, my Republican colleagues were eager to get started.
But on February 24th, the day before we were set to launch, Democrats went silent. As Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin more aptly put it, Democrats bailed on the project entirely with no explanation.
Since Democrats delayed participating in a bipartisan group meant to address pressing national security issues, Republicans are stepping up to execute on our original plan. That said, this is not a partisan issue and we invite our Democrat colleagues to join us.
The China Task Force will be led by House Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Michael McCaul and comprised of the following Republican Members of Congress, spanning nearly all committee jurisdictions for maximum input and expertise:
- Liz Cheney
- Darin LaHood
- Guy Reschenthaler
- Elise Stefanik
- Andy Barr
- Adam Kinzinger
- Michael Waltz
- Anthony Gonzalez
- Mike Gallagher
- Denver Riggleman
- John Curtis
- John Joyce
- Jim Banks
- Chris Stewart
