Exclusive — House Conservatives to Introduce Anti-China Bill as Contrast to Weak Senate-Passed Measure
House conservatives in the Republican Study Committee (RSC) will introduce a beefed up plan to counter the Chinese Communist Party meant to serve as a contrast to a much weaker Senate-passed plan, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
The office of RSC chairman Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) provided the bill text and detailed analysis of the forthcoming plan, titled the Countering Communist China Act, ahead of its public release. The plan is a contrast to a Senate-passed bill, originally called the Endless Frontier Act but renamed the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which passed the Democrat-controlled upper chamber of Congress several weeks ago with 68 votes despite serious concerns it would only help the Chinese Communist Party.while its backers said it would counter China. Conservatives are under no illusion that their bill would stand any chance in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives or U.S. Senate, but thet are introducing it to show how weak the Democrat bill is and contrast it with how a true anti-China plan should be structured policy-wise, presumably so when Republicans are back in the majority they can promote these ideas rather than the weak Democrat ones.
“Democrats’ China spending bills fall short, so that’s why House conservatives are introducing our own China bill as a benchmark for how Congress should address the China threat,” Banks said in a statement provided to Breitbart News exclusively. “Their bill places a burden on taxpayers and lets China off easy, but our bill protects taxpayers and holds the Chinese Communist Party accountable.”
The RSC bill would, aides involved in its crafting told Breitbart News, first and foremost target Chinese Communist Party influence operations inside the United States—something the Senate bill does not do. It would ban the United Work Development Front, China’s political operations arm, from accessing American financial institutions and prohibit American companies that receive federal subsidies from expanding business development in China or affiliating their businesses with entities that do business with the Chinese military. It would also prohibit the National Science Foundation from awarding grants to universities that engage in programs or with entities with Chinese Communist Party ties, and establish sanctions on Chinese companies for stealing U.S. intellectual property and prohibit said Chinese companies from ever again having any transactions with U.S. persons.
The bill is also extremely critical of China’s handling of the coronavirus, and would establish a select committee to investigate the origins and “coverup” by the Chinese Communist Party of the pandemic, as well as requiring “a determination into whether China’s negligence and coverup of the COVID-19 virus would meet the criteria of negligently using a biological weapon.”
Banks’s bill would also ban former members of Congress from lobbying for communist regimes like the Chinese Communist Party. The bill would amend the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 by adding the following language:
Notwithstanding any other pro- vision of this section, a former Member of Congress may not make a lobbying contact under this Act, or any communication which would be a lobbying contact under this Act if it were not disclosed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended (22 U.S.C. 611 et seq.), on behalf of a client which, at the time of the lobbying contact or communication, is a Communist country or an entity owned or controlled by a Communist country.
Any former member of Congress caught violating this would be fined up to $25,000.
The bill would also statutorily require the president to submit to Congress a plan to combat genocide and human rights violations that the Chinese Communist Party is currently committing against the Uyghur Muslim population within 60 days of the enactment of the legislation.
The RSC plan only spends $1 billion in total, as compared with $250 billion in new spending that the Senate-passed plan would dole out. Critics of the Senate plan—which has yet to be taken up by the House, but might be soon after the August recess ends in mid to late September—including Banks, have noted that despite the massive quarter trillion dollar price tag on it there are no safeguards to prevent that research from falling right back into the hands of the very same Chinese Communist Party influencers it is supposedly meant to counter.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), the chair of the RSC’s National Security and Foreign Affairs Task Force, said in a statement provided to Breitbart News that it’s time to hold China accountable.
“The United States can no longer stand for China’s malign influence, human rights abuses, and dishonest behavior,” Wilson said. “As Chairman of the Republican Study Committee National Security and Foreign Affairs Task Force, I’m grateful to work with RSC Chairman Jim Banks on the toughest China legislation in years. Enough is enough, China must be held responsible for their actions.”
