Session of the Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives
Session of the Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives, A special hearing of the House Financial Services Committee will discuss subversion and aggression from communist-ruled China and consider legislative proposals to counter these threats as the world's attention shifts heavily to Beijing's role in the world following the shooting down of its spy balloon over U.S. territory on Feb. 4.
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How to offer alternatives to American businesses that buy and sell a lot in China and use a lot of Chinese labor, including forced labor in Xinjiang Province, will be a topic of particular interest.
Countering the economic threat from China
The hearing, which is titled "Combating the Economic Threat From China," features four confirmed speakers who are knowledgeable about economic policy, global trade and diplomacy, and counterterrorism.
Clete Willems, a partner at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and a special assistant to the president for international trade, investment, and development during the administration of Donald Trump, is one of the witnesses scheduled to testify.
The director and founder of The Rubicon Advisors LLC, Tom Feddo; Eric Lorber, principal of PricewaterhouseCoopers' Cyber, Risk, and Regulatory practice and senior advisor to the Trump administration's undersecretary of state for terrorism and financial intelligence; and Rich Ashooh, the Lam Research Corporation's corporate vice president for global trade and government affairs.
Willems told The Epoch Times that the hearing's timing, two days after an international incident involving alleged Chinese espionage within U.S. borders, is coincidental, noting that the hearing was scheduled well in advance of the balloon's discovery.
However, the incident further emphasizes one of the hearing's themes; specifically, how to deal with the increasing threat posed by the Chinese regime's territorial, geostrategic, commercial, and technological plans.
For its response to Beijing's persistent violations of its World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, abusive trade practices, threat to Taiwan's sovereignty, and documented genocide of the Uyghur minority, the administration of President Joe Biden has been criticized.
The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration to punish Beijing for its numerous violations were backed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for a reduction.
Relations between US companies and China
Decoupling Trade and Investment The close business relationship between the Beijing regime and American businesses drawn to the lucrative potential of a market with more than a billion people is a significant contributor to the severity of the Chinese communist threat.
It is one thing to restrict capital flows and ensure that we are not financing China's military; however, if we are to decouple U.S. investors and companies from that market, we must provide them with alternatives. If you want to shut down the Chinese market, you need to open markets in other countries, Willems told The Epoch Times.
Reducing Beijing's opportunities for espionage and intellectual property theft
He stated that in order to limit Beijing's opportunities for espionage, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, and other abusive and illegal business practices, U.S. businesses must at least partially decouple from that market.
This, in turn, necessitates providing them with attractive new opportunities for doing business and investing in markets other than China.
Willems acknowledged the obvious reasons why businesses in the United States gravitate toward such a large market, but he also emphasized the possibility of alternatives that would make it much more difficult for Beijing to capitalize on business relationships between the East and West.
Trade agreements, for example, should be used as positive incentives for businesses to relocate. Companies need to have a foothold in the Chinese market if they want to be competitive on a global scale.
Therefore, in order to maintain our position as the world's most competitive economy, we require a well-thought-out and comprehensive strategy that, on the one hand, discusses the areas in which we need to impose restrictions and, on the other, discusses positive incentives.
- Willems intends to elaborate on his plans for such alternate arrangements at the hearing.
- Certain technologies and capital flows necessitate our disengagement from China for reasons of national security.
- I will discuss how you draw those lines. There are harmless forms of trade that benefit the United States, so I don't think we should completely separate from China.
- As you draw these lines, you'll see that decoupling has an economic cost, so you need to open up these third-country markets there. Willems went on to say, "I'd like you to be selling more into Vietnam if you can't sell into China.
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