Empower Wisconsin | Jan. 11, 2023

U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Allouez) has landed the lead seat on a newly created committee with a potentially huge footprint.

Wisconsin’s 8th District congressman was tapped as the chair of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. The committee was approved by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, 365-65.

Gallagher, who serves on the House Armed Services and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, was selected by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to lead the new committee.

The creation of the committee reflects the rising tensions between Communist China and the United States, as the former drives to carve out a larger sphere of influence.

The panel will be addressing priority issues, including:

• Restoring supply chains and ending critical economic dependencies on China.
• Strengthening the military.
• Ending the Chinese Communist Party’s theft of American personal data and intellectual property.
• Contrasting the Chinese Communist Party’s techno-totalitarian state with the values of the Free World.

“It is time to push back against the Chinese Communist Party’s aggression in bipartisan fashion, and today’s overwhelming bipartisan vote to create the Select Committee on the CCP is an important step in that direction,” Gallagher said in a statement. “The next step is to populate the committee with serious members on both sides and get to work with a sense of urgency.”

Gallagher has been a vocal supporter of bans on the popular video-sharing app TikTok  The China-based social network platform, with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, has been flagged by the intelligence community and cybersecurity experts as a real U.S. national security risk.

Gallagher led Wisconsin’s Republican congressional delegation in urging Gov. Tony Evers to prohibit TikTok from state government devices, which Evers in recent days has publicly said he will do.  

And Gallagher and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) have introduced a bipartisan bill to ban TikTok from operating in the United States.

“The threat posed by the CCP is not abstract,” Gallagher said in a speech Tuesday on the floor of the House. “We see this aggression here at home, where the party has stolen American intellectual property, technology and industrial capacity, undermining our economy and good-paying American jobs.”