Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party

Floor Speech

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Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that this Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and China will be a sober and comprehensive engagement of the very important challenge China poses to American security and prosperity and that of our allies, and not a cynical descent into the worst impulses of Republican oversight efforts.

This select committee offers an opportunity for this body to assess and act on how the United States can compete with the CCP on advanced manufacturing, trade, and emerging technologies; lead the world in competition between democracy versus autocracy; and to bring to light the autocratic practices and human rights violations in Hong Kong, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and Tibet.

As president of NATO's legislative arm, I was proud to partner with my colleagues in this body on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the Atlantic to put China on the NATO agenda for the very first time in its 70-year history.

I am hopeful this select committee can also follow the lead of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, which I co-chair and have co-chaired for 10 years, to use this committee as a venue to express bipartisan support for Taiwan's democracy, independence, and territorial sovereignty instead of driving wedges that can only advance the interests of those we seek to expose.

Using this committee to drive partisan wedges would be a missed opportunity, and I am hopeful we will not do that.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to tackle the geopolitical question of our generation and to make this a bipartisan inquiry and effort.

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