Republicans Home In on China Policy Following Balloon Shootdown
Lawmakers look to counter economic, military challenges from Beijing
WASHINGTON—House Republicans held a pair of hearings Tuesday to weigh how best to counter Beijing’s economic and military power, including the Pentagon’s response to the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down Saturday by the Air Force.
Mr. McHenry’s panel is weighing more than a dozen pieces of legislation meant to isolate China, including sanctions on companies tied to China’s military and a ban on the use of China’s digital currency by certain U.S. businesses.
Democrats on the panel said the U.S. needed to respond to a possible challenge to the dollar as the global reserve currency and other financial threats posed by Beijing. “The authoritarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party is trying to reshape the international order to supplant U.S. leadership,” said California Rep. Maxine Waters, the committee’s ranking Democrat.
Watch: China Says U.S. Overreacted After Shooting Down Balloon
Watch: China Says U.S. Overreacted After Shooting Down Balloon
While taking a hard line on China has broad backing in both parties, House Republicans have made U.S. policy toward China a central focus of the current Congress, citing the country’s military might that could threaten Taiwan and other allies, as well as unanswered questions about the origins of the Covid-19 virus.
Republicans established a select committee on competition between the U.S. and China and have pushed the Biden administration to further confront Beijing on issues including trade and regulation of TikTok, whose parent company is based in China. Last year, President Biden signed into law a bipartisan $280 billion package aimed at boosting the semiconductor industry and countering China.
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The House Armed Services Committee held a separate hearing Tuesday about whether the U.S. has dedicated enough resources to contend with China’s military.
Some members asked why deterring China, particularly in the Taiwan Strait, was essential to U.S. national security. Still others asked how the U.S. could strengthen its approach.
“Are we seeing the right sense of urgency from this administration when it comes to Taiwan?” Rep. Don Bacon, (R., Neb.), asked.
Ret. Navy Adm. Harry Harris, who led U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Asia Pacific, and visited Taiwan last week, said that while the U.S. was getting closer to “comprehensive unified view across the government…there is still far more we could do in Taiwan.”
The U.S. has bolstered its political and military support for Taiwan, a democracy and longstanding partner which China claims as its territory. Arming Taiwan has taken on greater urgency in Washington following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both to deter China and to avoid having to deliver weapons to Taiwan in the midst of a conflict.
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Also raised in the hearing was the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that crossed the U.S. and Canada for eight days before the Air Force shot it down Saturday off the Carolina coast. China previously sent surveillance balloons over the U.S. that went undetected until after leaving American airspace, Biden administration officials said.
China’s decision to send a balloon over the U.S. just days before a scheduled visit to China by Secretary of State Antony Blinken squandered an opportunity for necessary dialogue, Adm. Harris said.
“It’s indicative of China’s tone deaf behavior that even on the eve of his visit, they would have this balloon travel across the United States,” Adm. Harris said. “They claimed that it was a weather balloon yet they didn’t tell us it was going off course until we discovered it.”
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China has criticized the U.S., saying the shootdown was an overreaction to the presence of what it said was a civilian craft conducting meteorological research.
The balloon saga raised alarm among lawmakers. Over the weekend, House Republicans had floated the idea of a disapproval vote ahead of Tuesday’s State of the Union address criticizing Mr. Biden’s handling of the incident, questioning whether he waited too long in ordering it to be shot down.
By Monday, however, Republicans had shifted their approach. At a press conference Monday night, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said that any resolution brought forth by Republicans would focus more on China, as opposed to Mr. Biden. Mr. McCarthy also voiced his desire to make the resolution bipartisan.
In remarks to reporters after a briefing Tuesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) said he still had questions about the U.S. response.
“I could not imagine any scenario in which a large balloon visible to the naked eye in China would be allowed to basically cross the mainland,” he said. “Let’s get it all on the field. Then we can make some judgments. But I think it’s better for us to get all our facts first.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), the top Republican on the panel, said that the explanations the panel has received “are not generally satisfactory, and raise new questions.”
The administration has said it had waited until the balloon was over open water before downing it to avoid potential damage or injuries from debris, while playing down the value of the intelligence China was gathering from the balloon as it remained aloft. Officials also said that the delay in shooting down the balloon allowed the U.S. more time to study the craft.
Some Democrats voiced concerns that Republican rhetoric could stymie bipartisan work on China policy in Congress and send the wrong message to Beijing.
“I think it would be a very bad first signal if the new majority decided to take the very first national security issue and make it political,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) said Tuesday.
Write to Eric Bazail-Eimil at eric.bazaileimil@wsj.com, Andrew Ackerman at andrew.ackerman@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com