Former vice president Mike Pence endorsed legislation to ban TikTok as part of a broader China-focused policy rollout today through his nonprofit group, Advancing American Freedom.
“In recent years, China has only grown bolder in repressing religious liberty, trampling human rights, committing trade abuses, threatening Taiwan, and launching aggressive military maneuvers in the South China Sea,” he said in a statement. “Appeasement has never worked a single time in human history, and it will not work now.”
Advancing American Freedom is a nonprofit advocacy organization that Pence founded after leaving government. The agenda it released today indicates how Pence, who is thought to harbor presidential ambitions, might talk about China on the campaign trail.
The proposed legislative agenda encompasses five main pillars: canceling Chinese holdings of U.S. treasury debt and redistributing the funds to the families of Covid-19 victims, defunding racial-equity programs in the military and reinvesting in other initiatives, reviving the U.S. nuclear deterrent, fostering deeper bilateral trade relationships with U.S. allies, and fostering national conversation about AI and bioethics.
Pence also endorsed 18 bills offered by China hawks within the congressional GOP.
The first proposal listed is the Anti-Social CCP Act, a bill by Representative Mike Gallagher and Senator Marco Rubio, to ban TikTok.
Michael Sobolik, senior fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, took note of the fact that that bill was at the top of the policy agenda. “That isn’t an accident,” he said. “Pence recognizes that TikTok is a good barometer of America’s seriousness to blunt the CCP’s malign influence. If we can’t ban Beijing’s Trojan horse app and protect Americans from espionage, disinformation, and psychological warfare, then what exactly are we doing?”
It’s also noteworthy that Pence is aligning himself with legislation proposed by Gallagher, the chairman of the new House Select Committee on the CCP. The Wisconsin Republican is leading a bipartisan effort to steer a new approach to China policy, and his committee approved several reports today urging stronger stances on combating the Chinese government’s Uyghur genocide and arming Taiwan.
The other bills that Pence endorsed include proposals to end China’s permanent normal trade relations status, automatically sanction China if it invades Taiwan, and require federal contractors to disclose any business they hold with Chinese government, military, or party entities.