Top Priority of House Committee Chairman: Legislation Aimed at Limiting US Investment in China

September 27, 2024 TruthUSA

‘I believe that American businesses, American investors, want to do the right thing,’ said Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.).

WASHINGTON—A bipartisan House committee on China has prioritized legislation restricting U.S. investment in China, according to the panel’s chair.

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said that U.S. investors should not be “funding our own demise.”

“We have to have an outbound investment regime that basically says, ‘No investment in these businesses that are on some kind of a list,’ that says, ‘We shouldn’t be helping the Chinese military, we shouldn’t be supporting genocide,’” Moolenaar said at an event held at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on Sept. 25.

“That’s probably our No. 1 priority right now.”

There have been bipartisan concerns that when American companies invest in China—particularly in sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors—U.S. capital, intellectual property, and innovation would flow into entities that could support communist China’s military.

A recent report issued by the committee and the House Education and Workforce Committee found that millions of dollars of U.S. funding have indirectly helped the Chinese regime develop technology in fields such as hypersonics, nuclear, and AI.

There are other risks in allowing the regime access to U.S. technology.

“We just always have to be thinking about [a] worst-case scenario, which is, if they were to embed themselves in an energy supply chain, what could they do at that point?” said Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

Moolenaar and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sept. 26 introduced the Patriotic Investment Act to remove tax breaks for U.S. investment in China and encourage divestment from Chinese securities.

Human Rights Concerns

Some Western companies have been accused of helping the Chinese regime in its suppression of dissidents.

Thermo Fisher, under pressure, stopped selling DNA kits to Tibet because of concerns that the technology could be used for identifying individuals.

Tech firm Cisco has faced a lawsuit from practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual group under severe persecution in China, who said the company has collaborated with the Chinese authorities to develop a surveillance system to surveil and track them.

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