'We Want To Be Secure From China': Andy Biggs Decries CCP Influence
During a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) questioned witnesses about the development of Chinese threats to US holdings, and efforts to dissuade and confront the CCP's expanding influence.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Ms. Porter.
00:01Mr. Porter.
00:02Chair recognizes Mr. Biggs from Arizona.
00:03Mr. Biggs.
00:04Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
00:05And I appreciate all the witnesses being here.
00:06I appreciate this.
00:07I apologize for having to step out for a portion of your testimony.
00:12I did hear the Ranking Member, and I thought at first he was talking about former presidential
00:21candidate Hillary Clinton claiming the 2016 election was stolen, and with all of the groups
00:28on the left that asserted that for literally six years now.
00:33But then I realized, no, no, he's got TDS.
00:36That would be wrong.
00:37So leaving the political side of it out now, I thank you for your testimony.
00:42And I'll just say, Captain Finnell, in your book, Embracing Communist China and America's
00:47Greatest Strategic Failure, which I recently read, you argue that the United States should
00:53employ a modern day Truman Doctrine to counter the Chinese Communist Party.
00:58And there's some significant contextual differences between what was going on post World War II
01:04with where we are today and the immersion of the Cold War.
01:11I'm wondering if you would discuss and tell us what aspects of the Truman Doctrine you
01:19think need to be implemented today with regard to China.
01:24Well, I think that we need to look back on that history and understand that we were coming
01:31out of a world war and that we were coming out of a time where we didn't know what the
01:36future would lead to with a threat from the Soviet Union.
01:41And so the government under Truman and his doctrine was designed to make sure that we
01:46were defending ourselves against this potential threat, and so that we used the resources
01:52that we had to make sure that our government and our country were able to defend ourselves
01:58against a threat that we didn't know everything about it, but we knew that it had malign intentions
02:04for us.
02:05And I think that's the difference of what hasn't happened over the last 75 years is
02:10we haven't labeled the PRC as that threat, which the Truman Doctrine did with the Soviet
02:15Union, and that we didn't draw the distinctions in the line in the sand for a lot of reasons,
02:21and there was, you know, we understand why we engaged with China.
02:25For a lot of reasons, we did not perceive China as a threat because economically they
02:31were backwards, and we did not view them as a capable military threat legitimately.
02:38And so we then facilitated their rise and their move from basically a third world economy
02:46with no technology.
02:47We allowed them to skip literally generations of technological development because we facilitated
02:54their theft of our IP and our technology.
02:57And so I appreciate what you're saying that, and so I'm thinking of all the things that
03:03I know went on in the Cold War, all the things we did, whether it was imposition on corporations,
03:08what we were selling, what we would allow in, the exchanges of people across the borders,
03:15not just directly U.S. to Soviet Union, but affiliates and within the blocks of countries.
03:24So, Mr. Bethel, your statement, you talk about a comprehensive strategy, and I kind of I've
03:31sensed that that's what all of you talk about.
03:33I'm trying to get specific iterated issues that we can look at, create legislation, and
03:42do what we're supposed to do, which is impose laws to enact policy, well, impose policy
03:48to enact laws, vice versa, it doesn't matter.
03:50But can you give me some of your strategies when you say a comprehensive strategy dealing
03:54with China?
03:56I have to be sensitive about what I say because I recognize that the CCP could be listening,
04:02so I'm happy to take this on.
04:04I anticipate that they are.
04:06But I think the first strategy is to know what you want.
04:09I don't think we know what we want as a country, and so if you don't know where you're going,
04:12then any road will take you in any direction.
04:15Yeah.
04:16Okay, so that's an old kotowaza, as we would say in Japanese.
04:22But the bottom line is we want to be secure from China.
04:30We want to have control of our destiny.
04:32When China, the middle kingdom, they want to become the hegemon, the world hegemon.
04:43And that is the problem that we face, is dealing with a country that is willing to
04:49emasculate itself in order to gain the upper hand.
04:55And so that's why I'm asking, maybe you feel more comfortable talking in a skiff or something,
05:02but I'm trying to get specific items, not generic items.
05:08Should we be limiting student visas from China, for instance?
05:13Maybe we should.
05:14We probably should.
05:16Should we then, and Ms. Kissel, in your document, you were talking specifically about how we
05:23are treated by CCP on diplomacy, and diplomats, and visitors, et cetera.
05:32Should we be doing the same?
05:33Should we be restricting travel of Chinese diplomats here?
05:37And I'd like to know.
05:39100%.
05:40We talked a lot about reciprocity in the Trump administration, but there's a long way to
05:46go.
05:47We do not have freedom of movement in China.
05:48They should not have freedom of movement here.
05:50Our consular affairs people, as I say in my testimony, should be clearly vetting every
05:55person who enters from communist China for military intelligence security ties.
06:00We should be limiting Chinese students who are coming here to study STEM.
06:04We should be talking to our European allies and encouraging them to forbid Chinese students
06:09who come from military universities in China for studying in European universities or Australian
06:14or Japanese universities, for instance.
06:16There's an enormous amount that the State Department can do.
06:19Aside from just the actions that I've outlined here, rhetorically, we need to issue clear,
06:25comprehensive travel warnings.
06:27I fought very hard when I was at State to get the Consular Affairs Bureau to put accurate,
06:33complete warnings out about the risk of travel.
06:36We now have different travel warnings for mainland China than we do for Hong Kong.
06:41These aren't functionally different places.
06:42They're one and the same.
06:44It should be the same level.
06:46Just to give you one example, but I agree with Eric that it has to be a comprehensive
06:50strategy and we have to stop being defensive.
06:54We need an offensive strategy that plays to our strength and that also utilizes not just
06:59our own power economically, militarily, and otherwise, but the power of our friends and
07:04allies because we also have friends and allies that aren't just democracies.
07:08There are places like Vietnam, for instance, not a democracy that very clearly recognized
07:13the threat from communist China.
07:15We need to leverage that relationship across the spectrum of federal power and use it.
07:20Thank you.
07:21Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
07:22And I'll just say, having met with Central American leaders over the last couple of months,
07:28they're really concerned about the influence China's having in their nations, and you're
07:32right about them controlling, like Panama, or trying to get control of Panama.
07:36I think of Sri Lanka.
07:37I think of what happened there.
07:38I mean, I'll yield back.
07:41Very good.
07:42Very good.
07:43Chair recognizes Mr. Timmons from South Carolina.