US congressional select committee wrong in countering China: Foreign Policy

NEW YORK -- There is reason to fear that the newly established US House select committee on strategic competition with China will fall into the traps from the past given its policies and activities concerning China, said a recent Foreign Policy article.

It prioritizes political theater over substantive inquiry and invites testimony from individuals who confirm the members' hawkish assumptions about China rather than offering nuanced assessments, Anatol Klass, doctoral candidate in the history department at UC Berkeley, wrote in the article published Monday.

"Many pundits and researchers who support a strategy of engagement with China have expressed concern that policy initiatives like the China select committee, given its explicitly hawkish agenda, may accelerate the deterioration of US-China relations, antagonize Beijing, and push Washington toward increasingly confrontational stances," Klass wrote.

Others have warned that the committee's activities may contribute to the wave of anti-Asian hate that has endangered Asian American communities across the country, he wrote.

"Today's congressional China select committee is also asking a misguided question -- namely: 'Who helped China rise?' But if the committee's hearings are spent looking for domestic culprits, they will necessarily ignore the fact that those culprits took their cues from several decades of Washington policy that supported China's growth," he wrote.

The primary concern here is that the political climate in Washington will alienate the people whose expertise and connections might help Congress understand the Chinese government and its posture toward the United States, he added.