Democrats Stack New Counter-CCP Committee with Their China Hawks

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries announced congressional Democrats’ appointees to the new select committee on the Chinese Communist Party — a lineup of members who have taken hawkish stances on China.

The select committee on the CCP was established through a bipartisan vote last month, and Representative Mike Gallagher was selected by House speaker Kevin McCarthy as the panel’s chairman. The resolution creating the committee received support from all Republicans and a majority of Democrats, though a group of progressive lawmakers opposed the measure on grounds that it would encourage anti-Asian hate.

While there was speculation that Jeffries might opt to appease some of the committee’s detractors, he appointed only one member, Representative Shontel Brown, who had voted against the committee. Although she’s a member of the congressional progressive caucus, she did not join a statement signed by 23 members of Congress laying out their opposition to the committee in stark terms.

The panel’s ranking member will be Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who has partnered with Gallagher on legislation to ban TikTok. Other Democrats on the committee will include Representatives Ro Khanna, Seth Moulton, and Ritchie Torres, all of whom have a record of bipartisan cooperation — particularly on foreign-policy matters.

In a statement issued this afternoon, Krishnamoorthi said he’s looking forward to working with the committee to counter CCP misbehavior, while adding a comment that suggests he’s sensitive to the concerns raised by progressives about anti-Asian hate:

That said, at a time when anti-Asian hate and violence are on the rise, it’s essential that this committee focuses its vital work on protecting all Americans from the threat posed by the CCP, while avoiding dangerous rhetoric that fuels the types of xenophobia that have endangered members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Chairman Gallagher has repeatedly demonstrated his singular focus on the committee’s critical undertaking of readying the United States for all the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party, and I look forward to working with him and our colleagues from both parties in meeting that responsibility on behalf of all Americans.

Gallagher has repeatedly said that his goal is to turn the committee into a place for bipartisan cooperation on China-related policy initiatives. Jeffries’ picks today indicate that Democrats are interested in doing the same.