A Republican lawmaker blasted the “odd, self-flagellating beliefs” that could prevent the United States from responding effectively to the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party. However, Representative Mike Gallagher, who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, voiced hope that China’s rise has united warring GOP factions on foreign-policy questions.
Gallagher said, during an event on Monday, that the threat posed by China could serve to unite Republicans who promote a more hawkish foreign policy with self-described restrainers within conservative circles.
“I would argue Trump was not an isolationist,” he said, adding that he doesn’t see much daylight between different conservative foreign-policy factions on China. “I think it’s resolved in part by the China challenge.”
The Trump administration broke with previous administrations’ efforts to engage China, instead emphasizing “reciprocity” in its dealings with Beijing. That led to a more assertive stance on everything from trade to human rights to defense.
Intra-conservative fights are eclipsed by the threat posed by China’s malign influence, Gallagher said.
“I don’t think there can be a modus vivendi with the Chinese Communist Party as currently constituted,” Gallagher said. “I think this is an expansionist power that is set not on just undermining but in some ways destroying the U.S.-led global order as we currently conceive it.”
Gallagher was speaking at National Review Institute’s foreign-policy conference, a gathering that brought together conservative lawmakers such as Senator Tom Cotton and Trump administration officials to make the case for a strong national-security posture.
During a panel discussion with John Hillen, a senior State Department official in the George W. Bush administration and an NR, Inc. board member, he issued a stark warning about the failure of Americans to meaningfully confront China’s rise.
“Until we grapple with the fact that we’re in the early stages of a new Cold War and we’re losing, either because we’ve been complacent, or we don’t we believe we deserve to win because of some odd self-flagellating beliefs that have percolated domestically here in America, I think that it’s going to get pretty grim pretty quickly.”
Gallagher elaborated on his warning, pointing out that the situation around Taiwan could get “pretty grim pretty quickly,” citing the parade of prominent military officers who have warned that China will invade the island democracy in the near future.
Then-outgoing Indo-Pacific Commander Phil Davidson warned during a congressional hearing last spring the Beijing could move on Taiwan within the next six years.
Gallagher emphasized the need to start producing more munitions, and said that the Trump-era decision to exit the Intermediate range Nuclear Forces Treaty has freed the U.S. to seek a more advantageous military posture in the Indo-Pacific, including by installing missile interceptors to protect bases there.
Other factors eroding America’s military edge, Gallagher said, included a pivot away from hard power-deterrence and a pernicious emphasis on Diversity-Equity-Inclusion training in the military.
Self-described proponents of foreign policy “restraint” across the political spectrum have banded together in Washington in recent years, in a coalition bringing together libertarians, right-wing populists, and progressive-activist networks.
At times, some members of that coalition, such as the Quincy Institute think tank, which is funded by prominent philanthropists Charles Koch and George Soros, have promoted talking points that suggest that the U.S. has no moral standing to counter China’s malign influence — supposedly, in part, because countering Beijing’s influence is racist. But, as Gallagher’s remarks would suggest, there’s a generally broad consensus on working to counter China’s global ambitions on the right.