House easily passes resolution to create bipartisan China select committee

The House voted overwhelmingly to pass a resolution Tuesday to create a select committee focused on U.S. competition with China, fulfilling a campaign promise Republicans made in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections.

The resolution passed in a 365-65 vote, with 146 Democrats joining Republicans in supporting the measure.

The select committee, chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), will zero in on the Chinese Communist Party’s economic, technological and security progress and the strategic competition between Beijing and Washington. The resolution tasks the panel with investigating and submitting policy recommendations on those matters.

The group — which will be made up of seven Republicans and five Democrats — has the authority to hold public hearings.

“I’ve heard my colleagues on both sides say that the threat posed by Communist China is serious. I fully agree,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said during debate on the House floor Tuesday. “This is an issue that transcends political parties. And creating the select committee on China is our best avenue for addressing it.”

“We want the very best ideas, and it doesn't matter where they come from. At the end of the day, we won't need a minority and majority report. We'll just need one philosophy, with one principle, and America will be stronger for the future to come,” he added.

Ahead of the midterm elections, McCarthy said House Republicans would create a select committee on China should they take control of the chamber in November. He said he wanted to “look at every industry that China has tried to take control on” and “look at where China has been stealing our technology as well.”

He took a key step in following through with that promise in December, tapping Gallagher to chair the panel. In a Fox News op-ed that month, McCarthy and Gallagher said the panel would repair supply chains, end dependencies on China and bolster the U.S. military, among other functions.

The creation of the select committee also fulfills a longtime goal of McCarthy, who has been working to establish a China panel since 2020. He came close to doing so that year until Democrats pulled out of the effort.

McCarthy on Tuesday vowed that the current China panel would be free of partisanship.

“You have my word and my commitment, this is not a partisan committee. This will be a bipartisan committee that is my hope, my desire, to speak with one voice on the challenges that we have,” he said on the floor.