Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party
Floor Speech
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Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the creation of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
I rise as a research scientist who has participated in many international collaborations, which included some brilliant Chinese scientists; and I rise also as a businessman who founded a high-tech manufacturing business that now provides over 1,000 good-paying American manufacturing jobs and has kept those manufacturing jobs in America despite having to compete in the world markets with cloned Chinese products for over two decades.
I have watched with consternation as our businesses' electronic supply chain has been increasingly dependent upon China.
Now, it was not a stupid thing for our country and the countries of the free world to attempt to help China become a free and open country by integrating it into the international economy and into the international scientific research community and to open our doors to Chinese students and scholars.
In the years since World War II, that approach has succeeded in turning many previously autocratic countries into free democracies around the world. In fact, in previous years, China took a number of steps toward becoming a free and open country. But in recent years, it has turned back toward autocracy. So it is time to respond to that reality and to take thoughtful action.
On a personal note, my wife is Korean and is a scientist who has contributed at the highest levels of scientific research and science policy in the United States. The only reason that she is free today is that two generations ago, the U.S. and the free countries of the world stood up against Communism in Korea. But nothing is more self-defeating than the anti-Asian racism that sometimes creeps into the debate in our country.
The frontiers that we should be defending are not the good old U.S. of A. but the free democracies of the world.
So, Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this new Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, in particular in the clear distinction that it makes, even in its title, between the Communist Party of China and the people of China who are not the enemy.
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