Will Congress Really Do Anything About the CCP Threat to the US?

Commentary

The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party is the brainchild of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. It sounds like a great start to the new Republican-led Congress for 2023.

But a bit of circumspection is advisable and with good reason.

All Bark, No Bite

First, the new select committee’s powers are rather limited. It is only investigative. In other words, it can only watch or discover existing or emerging dangers, threats, or other subversive activities by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against the United States. So it can identify threats posed by the CCP against the country, but it can’t outlaw them or otherwise address them in any tangible, legal capacity.

The CCP must be shaking in its knock-off cowboy boots as it stands on the millions of acres of U.S. farmland that Chinese companies own.

Second, the 16-member select committee, which comprises nine Republicans and seven Democrats, won’t have any power to make new laws to address any discovered or known threats, much less rescind ones that enable the CCP’s nefarious behavior.

Third, and somewhat puzzling, is that the new committee will be able to hold public hearings regarding its investigations. Would those public hearings be along the lines of the Benghazi hearings?

Benghazi and the Impotence of Public Hearings

You may recall—or perhaps not—that during the Obama administration, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked and overrun by local Islamists. There had been ample warnings and requests by the ambassador for security enhancements, which were allegedly denied. The attack resulted in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, along with three American men defending the consulate for 13 hours, and humiliation for the United States in the region.

In the hearings, it was revealed that U.S. military forces were just two hours away but were never allowed to deploy to the embattled consulate, according to Fox News. There were, in fact, fewer moments of clarity in the hearings than many rightly expected there would be, with many more instances of murkiness, counteraccusations, and dissembling of the events in question. Ultimately, the hearing went nowhere, without meaning or positive resolution.

The point is if that’s the kind of public hearings and witness calling Speaker McCarthy has in mind, why bother? If public hearings regarding an attack on a U.S. consulate with the death of an ambassador didn’t yield punishment of those responsible, why should anyone expect that some future hearings concerning possible or debatable threats posed by the CCP yield any kind of national security benefit?

In short, when was the last time public hearings resulted in any meaningful change for the better?

Arguably, it’s been decades.

Will the Committee Investigate the US Government?

What, then, could the motive be for the new speaker to form such a committee?

After all, some of the CCP’s most egregious threats to the United States involve the deep connections, both personal and financial, that some U.S. Senators and Members of Congress on both sides of the political aisle have with Beijing. What’s worse is that China’s communist regime poses a direct threat to the American people in a variety of ways.

Will the select committee go after the deep financial ties that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her husband, and her son allegedly have with China?

How about Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and the shipping company he owns with his wife Elaine Chao that has allegedly deep ties to China?

There’s also Eric Swalwell, the Democrat Member of Congress who sat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for years. Swalwell reportedly had ties to a suspected Chinese spy, Christine Fang, who helped him fundraise for his 2014 reelection campaign before suddenly leaving the country in 2015. McCarthy has publicly criticized Swalwell via the FBI’s report on him, with McCarthy declaring that he would block Swalwell from serving on the intelligence committee.

That begs the question, “What does one have to do to be kicked out of Congress?”

Doesn’t the FBI report to McCarthy, and Swallwell’s possible dalliance with a suspected Chinese spy make him unfit even to be allowed to remain in Congress?

Then there’s the Bidens–both Joe and Hunter–who have allegedly collected millions of dollars from the Chinese Communist regime over the past decades, as documented by the FBI. Hunter’s former secretary has reportedly been linked to the CCP. Furthermore, James Biden, the brother of the president, has also been identified by Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley as a beneficiary of the president’s extensive business connections with companies associated with Beijing.

Political Theater and Nothing More?

The above is but a tiny fraction of a long list of the U.S. government’s deep connection to the CCP and its corrupting influence in America.

Will anything come of this new committee? Given that the CCP’s threat to the United States has grown in magnitude by some estimates, at least 1,300 percent over the past several years, it would seem that McCarthy’s new committee should be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of cleansing the U.S. government of the CCP’s massive influence.

But is that realistic?

Will the new speaker of the House hold public hearings on the depth of corruption in which some of his colleagues are allegedly happily and profitably engaged?

Will the speaker publicly confront the Biden administration for its alleged history of corruption and coordination with the CCP and others?

The most likely answer, admittedly a cynical one, is that Speaker of the House McCarthy is engaging in gratuitous and unreservedly disingenuous political theater.

Why should anyone expect it to be something more?

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.