From left are Scott Paul, president of the American Manufacturing Alliance; human rights activist Tong Yi; HR McMaster, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump; and former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger testified at a US-China committee hearing on Tuesday.
Alex Brandon/AP
hide topic
theme switcher
Alex Brandon/AP
From left are Scott Paul, president of the American Manufacturing Alliance; human rights activist Tong Yi; HR McMaster, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump; and former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger testified at a US-China committee hearing on Tuesday.
Alex Brandon/AP
A new panel on US-China relations held its first hearing Tuesday night to examine the threats posed by the Chinese government and bilateral solutions.
Four witnesses, including former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser HR McMaster and Tong Yi, a former secretary to prominent Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, discussed national security, economic competition and human rights.
For three hours, they explained how the Chinese Communist Party had seized power in the world market and threatened American interests.
In a rare moment of bipartisan unity, lawmakers pledged to do more to reduce these threats and improve America’s competitiveness.
“We can call it a strategic contest, but it’s not a polite tennis match,” said Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin, the committee’s chairman. “It’s an existential struggle about what life is like in the 21st century.”
Lawmakers called the U.S.-China dynamic complex and needed immediate attention. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthy of Illinois, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said the US does not want a hot or cold war with China, but must work to prevent aggression.
In an interview with The Morning Post on Tuesday, Gallagher and Krishnamoorthy were careful to distinguish between their views of the Chinese government and its people as victims of an oppressive regime.
They also stressed the need to avoid xenophobia and “anti-Chinese or Asian stereotypes of any kind.” (Anti-war protesters holding signs reading “China is not our enemy” and “Stop Asian Hate” interrupted the opening statements.)
“The CCP believes that we will be divided,” Krishnamoorthy said. “We have to rise to the occasion and prove them wrong.”
RSD representative Dusty Johnson takes the witness stand during a U.S.-China House hearing on Capitol Hill on Saturday.
Alex Brandon/AP
hide topic
theme switcher
Alex Brandon/AP
RSD representative Dusty Johnson takes the witness stand during a U.S.-China House hearing on Capitol Hill on Saturday.
Alex Brandon/AP
An issue of concern: Foreign ownership of US farmland
Chinese entities are gradually buying up US farmland. Some members of Congress see it as a threat to national security.
One of them is South Dakota Republican Representative Dusty Johnson, a member of the new China-focused committee. He said morning editionSteve Inskeep said on Wednesday that while China is not a major player in US agriculture, its growing overseas holdings are a cause for concern.
“Food safety is national security,” he said. “I think we have seen that Russia has been able to influence Europe beyond measure because they have supplied it with natural gas. Likewise, if China controls the food supply of South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and even North America, it can give them more power. more coercive force on earth.”
According to the USDA, China will actually own a very small percentage of all foreign-owned U.S. farmland in 2021—about 0.9%. But at the same time, China’s investment in overseas agriculture increased more than tenfold between 2009 and 2016 alone, which worries many of those countries.
“This is not a small amount of food we’re talking about,” Johnson says. “In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has increased its ownership of foreign agricultural land by 1,000%. It has 1,300 agricultural processing plants outside of China, and the number is growing rapidly.”
The National Family Farm Coalition and other advocacy groups say the biggest threat to U.S. food security is corporate acquisitions of U.S. or foreign land, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Federal law does not limit the amount of private U.S. agricultural land owned by foreigners, although it does require foreign entities to disclose such information to the USDA. State-level restrictions on foreign land ownership vary.
Rep. Johnson is part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers supporting the PASS Act, which would prohibit China, Iran, North Korea or Russia from buying US agricultural land or processing facilities.
Recent acquisitions, including a Chinese company’s 2022 purchase of farmland near an air base in North Dakota, have increased concern and support for such legislation.
Johnson, the bill’s sponsor, said Chinese farms make up a tiny fraction of the total farmland in the United States right now, but the issue could be a big concern for the new House committee. The group plans future local hearings, which may include state visits, to highlight the issue of investment in Chinese farmland or businesses.
“One thing we heard from our witnesses last night is that we cannot give the Chinese Communist Party coercive power over our economy,” he said, whether in renewable technologies, rare earths, steel or other industries. “Food is one of the areas where we maintain competitiveness; Of course, we must not allow this to happen.”
Congressional reporter Deirdre Walsh contributed to this story.
Allie Schweitzer edited the audio interview.
All news on the site does not represent the views of the site, but we automatically submit this news and translate it using software technology on the site, rather than a human editor.
