What Will the Next Congress Prioritize on China?

An interview with Rep. Chris Smith, plus a look at a bill condemning genocide in Ukraine.

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Rep. Chris Smith greets activist Sunny Cheung during a Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing in 2019.(Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Leadership of the commission charged with keeping watch of human rights in China will turn over in the new Congress. Rep. Chris Smith will likely chair the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, his second time leading the panel.

Smith, a New Jersey Republican, discussed his priorities for the coming Congress in an impromptu 20-minute interview with The Dispatch last week during House votes. Below are some highlights.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act

Along with producing an annual report on human rights in China, keeping a list of political prisoners, and crafting legislation, one of the CECC’s main tasks is holding hearings. Smith plans early on to hold a hearing on implementation of one of the commission’s biggest achievements—the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act—and will seek testimony from Biden administration officials. 

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  1. Dhsavidge1

    Hopefully not TikTok. What an utter waste of time. So far, the arguments are: they can access user data (they cannot) and they could spread misinformation and ... (grab your pearls) propaganda. Hello? 2016? Russia has been doing all of these things through Facebook/Meta, etc. for a decade now. How about we encourage more companies to move their production out of the PRC like Apple (and not do the other Apple thing). Ensure that anyone doing any actual design and innovation in China know that Chinese law considers IP created in the PRC to be essentially work-for-hire for the state. Lots of companies don't get this. The one thing that Trump got right was to bring to the fore the fact that China is our adversary full stop. He of course ignored Russia - but who can blame him - the videos right?

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  2. Joe1776

    I have a lot of respect for politicians and journalists that refuse to turn a blind eye to these atrocities in China. It makes me sick in the pit of my stomach that so many Americans justify this slavery with the old “yeah but the products are so inexpensive.” No that is not a valid excuse buy products from slave holders.

    I am often trying to find items that are not made in China. It can be hard. I don’t mind buy products from just about any country but not China. It seems everything on Amazon is from China.

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  3. Rdtomasello51

    Outstanding job on covering the pending legislation in Congress. I truly hope that we can really put some teeth into the Uyghir Forced Labor Act and am disappointed that administration officials may drag their feet in testifying before the appropriate committee. Thank you for these important updates on this issue Haley.

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    Earl King

    Wink wink, nod nod. Having our economies so intertwined is an actual problem when you trying to restrict products that have been ordered by US companies.
    My only suggestion to Rep. Smith, should he read this, is to talk to the American businesses on the effect of the Law and enforcement. Perhaps offering solutions. Frankly the Biden Administration is not the reason we trade with China. Our businesses are the reason and the American public is the reason which has gotten used to cheap stuff from China. Many Americans don’t care where a product is made. Congress should do a better job of explaining the issues. As usual we jump to the hyperbole first. What are the products we are looking for, can they be easily replaced. Where are the replacements made? Communist Vietnam? Authoritarian India where Modi is discriminating abasing muslims?
    No I don’t want to do any business with China, but this is same issue we have with Democrats who think we can get off fossil fuel next year. It is insanity. It might take us a decade or two to replace goods now manufactured in China.
    No I don’t want to buy products made by slave labor and I want the government to deny their sale. The effect on American business, the owners and the employees will be real. The callousness that everyone decried when 11,000 pipe fitters and welders were let go when Biden closed the Keystone pipeline...the same will happed to American business. I just hope we are smart about this.

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    Ben Connelly

    I wish there was a like button

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  6. Clarity

    After two decades when we were a superpower and the country most likely to send its military across foreign borders (but not to acquire territory), the world has changed dramatically and returned to normal. Democracy is in retreat. The US is becoming isolationist. Europe has almost totally disarmed.

    While Biden has done a respectable job managing the war in Ukraine, the biggest lesson I have learn is the Biden FAILED to deter Putin. DETERRING a war is vastly more important than doing a great job of FIGHTING a war. Fighting and not achieving your objectives is the worst outcome of all. With Trump and Europe living in a fantasy world about Russia, deference may not have been possible in Ukraine, but it is still Biden's most critical foreign policy failure.

    Putin had unambiguously told us his goal is to reincorporate all ethnic Russians inside inside a recreated Russian Empire that had been fragmented by losing a war. Hitler unambiguously told us his goal was similar. The only difference between Putin's attacks on Chechnya, Moldova, Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine and Hitler's on Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and then Poland is that that Putin has been more patient.

    The Chinese Communist Party has made it unambiguously clear that their goal is to make their country whole by gaining control of Taiwan. Their violation of treaties and crackdown over Hong Kong makes it clear that Xi has abandoned all hope of peaceful reunification with Taiwan. Their military strategy has been to deny our surface fleet access to the South China Sea with ballistic missiles and that goal has clearly been accomplished with the develop of hypersonic missiles - if not before. Our Air Force is vulnerable to attack by ballistic missiles at our only major base in Okanawa and even more vulnerable in smaller bases in South Korea. Our nuclear attack submarines are our only forces that can defend Taiwan and their numbers are shrinking. We are currently focused on up-grading our subs that carry ICBMs and only have the capability of launching two new nuclear subs a year. We aren't even close to being in a position that will deter a Chinese attack. Biden's off-the-cuff remarks certainly aren't going to DETER China, and his staff (which keeps contradicting him) obviously knows it. If the Taiwanese are tough enough to withstand and initial assault like the Ukrainians BARELY did, the Chinese jugular in a longer war is their need to import oil. They are building pipelines to avoid the need to ship oil and have become allies of the Russians, who have plenty.

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      Ben Connelly

      I agree

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    Chuck

    Learning the formal definition of genocide is informative, but it doesn't seem very useful as a objective standard. Conditions a through d occur in every war to some extent. I'm reasonably confident most wars include examples of e as well, although if news reports are accurate it seems like Russia's forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russian families goes well beyond typical examples.

    I think the best case that this is genocide rather than conventional warfare is that Putin has made it clear that he'd like to eliminate the Ukrainian identity. That said, the way this war was launched also makes it pretty clear that he isn't looking to kill huge portions of the Ukrainian population. That's not to say he won't do that if required, but it's not a primary goal.

    Without a better definition of genocide, the decisions about what to call genocide will always be political. The political nature of the accusation is what allows apologists for the offenders to dismiss accusations pretty effectively.

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    1. Paulkempf

      With respect to Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention, which Haley quotes, broad as it is, the key element seems to be intent. Even without a formal determination by an international tribunal, Putin's intent to efface the Ukrainian identity--as evidenced by not only slaughter of civilians, but transport of populations to the Russian Far East (what we think of as Siberia) to be replaced by Russians, abduction of children to be raised as Russians...as well as his statements equating Ukrainian identity with Nazism, psychosis etc.--seems clear enough for normal conversation. Here's the convention document:
      https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
      And here's guidance from the UN on use of the term:
      https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
      You can't really take politics out of international relations, but this is all we have. Ain't nobody here but us chickens.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnyB0a8G71Y

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      Ben Connelly

      Great comment. I share those concerns.

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