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Halifax, Nova Scotia – House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul issued the following statement in response to the administration restarting multiple bilateral dialogues with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including in climate and trade. The CCP had terminated these dialogues following its own warmongering over Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August. 

“I am extremely concerned that the Biden administration – either willfully or ignorantly – is allowing itself to be fooled by the CCP. The United States spent decades trying to bring the CCP into the family of nations, yet bilateral dialogue failed to prevent an ongoing genocide in Xinjiang, the forcible takeover of Hong Kong, and millions of job losses from IP theft and unfair trade. The CCP does not deal in good faith but exploits these talks to manipulate naïve officials – offering new talks to reward compliance and terminating them to punish bureaucrats for U.S. policies. The people responsible for our national security need to wake up to these transparent manipulation tactics.”

To prove they are not falling into the CCP’s trap, the Biden administration must take action to advance U.S. national security while these alleged dialogues are ongoing, and before Secretary Blinken’s visit to Beijing this Spring. Steps could include:

  • Ensuring Taiwan receives weapons that the House Foreign Affairs Committee has approved and planning for Taiwan’s defense
  • Concluding comprehensive agreements with the governments of Japan and the Netherlands to harmonize export control policies
  • Fully severing TikTok’s links to Bytedance or any entity under the CCP’s control to help address national security concerns 
  • Taking steps to strengthen the United States’ military posture in the Indo-Pacific
  • Stopping the flow of Americans’ personal data into CCP entities

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