Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi Delivers Remarks at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: “We Must Be Clear-Eyed, Confident, and Leading with Strength”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Monday, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), delivered remarks and participated in a moderated Q&A with Dean James B. Steinberg at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). During his address, Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi presented a vision for America’s strategic competition with the CCP from his vantage point as Ranking Member of the Select Committee, emphasizing the need for American leadership to be “clear-eyed and confident” moving forward.

Below is a copy of Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi’s full remarks, as prepared for delivery.

Thank you, Dean Steinberg and thank you to the staff here at SAIS and thank you all for attending. Congratulations on your new home. It’s truly an honor to be the first member of Congress to address SAIS in this beautiful auditorium as leaders gather for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco.

I think your physical shift here coincides with a mental shift in America regarding one of the greatest challenges facing our country today – namely our strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Now… I will do the obvious and be That Guy from Illinois who leads with a Chinese expression: BAO-shi bu-bao-YO. If I said that correctly, it should mean “only report the good news, don’t report the bad news.” If I said it wrong, then I think I just ordered some steamed buns.

On a serious note, the CCP is taking this Chinese expression to new extremes. When consumer confidence plunged this year… the CCP stopped reporting consumer confidence. After months of rising youth unemployment, the CCP – you guessed it – stopped reporting youth unemployment.

The CCP wants us – and they want their own population – to think they have everything under control, and that China’s rise cannot be stopped. But in fact, the CCP is hiding all sorts of problems.

What’s funny is that in America, we flip this Chinese expression on its head. We report bad news but don’t amplify the good news.

But in fact, airing our bad news is one of our strengths. We’re not afraid to be transparent and discuss problems in public. And we are able to learn from our mistakes. Still, this questioning can make us forget our strengths and the reasons we should be so confident in America.

Today I want to outline my vision, as the Democratic leader of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the CCP, for how we win this competition by being clear-eyed about the challenges facing us while coming from a place of strength and confidence.

I’ll talk about three things. First, I’ll lay the groundwork for how we got to this point in our relationship.

Second, I’ll explain how outdated assumptions about the CCP led to recent policy failures.

And third and finally, I’ll share how we can get our policies right by leaning into our strengths as a country.

But first, let’s start with how we got here.

America has always had an affinity towards China. American culture and ideas have deeply influenced China, and Chinese culture and generations of Chinese-Americans have enriched our country. In fact, I and the Chairman of our committee, Mike Gallagher, have made it clear that even as we compete with the CCP, we must stand by our Chinese-American and Asian-American communities against all forms of anti-Asian bigotry.

Since the founding of our nation, our affinity for China has led us to partner with them. From Congress setting up a scholarship fund to educate more than 30,000 young Chinese students here in America… to fighting side by side with the Chinese in World War II… to President Roosevelt making sure China had a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

The CCP’s takeover in 1949 upended that friendship, but we still thought partnering with China was possible.

We established diplomatic ties in 1979 and we looked the other way when the CCP massacred its own citizens ten years later.

We even gave China full market access by giving them Permanent Normal Trade Relations status.

In 2000, speaking in SAIS’s old building, President Clinton argued in favor of PNTR, saying, “If you believe in a future of greater openness and freedom for the people of China, you ought to be for this agreement.”

I stand before you today, in this new SAIS building…two decades later… to say—We. Were. Wrong.

This leads to my second point – why it’s important to understand why we got the CCP so wrong then, so we can get our policy right today.

On diplomacy – We Were Wrong. While relationships between Americans and the Chinese people flourished, the CCP never intended to partner with us. Instead, Xi Jinping told the CCP to be the “gravediggers of capitalism” and that “capitalism will … be destroyed.”

On the economy – We Were Wrong. The CCP said they would adopt “open, market-oriented policies.” Instead, they stole billions of dollars of intellectual property, dumped goods in our market, and destroyed businesses and jobs.

My own district in Illinois lost more than 15,000 jobs because of the CCP’s unfair trade practices.

On human rights – We Were Wrong. Instead of allowing “greater openness and freedom” for the Chinese people, the CCP built a surveillance state. It represses Chinese dissidents, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other minorities. And it crushed Hong Kong’s freedom and autonomy.

It is also conducting an ongoing genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. A CCP religious affairs official described what they’re doing to the Uyghurs. He said, “Break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins.”

On national security – We. Were. Wrong. Rather than peacefully integrate into its neighborhood, the CCP has undertaken a massive military buildup. The CCP is now threatening Taiwan and ramming ships from the Philippines and Vietnam sailing lawfully in the South China Sea. The CCP’s claims of sovereignty over the entirety of the South China Sea are laughable… and have been ruled to be patently illegal under international law.

We Were Wrong. Yet we CANNOT be wrong any longer.

So what do we do about it?

Here is my takeaway for you – simply put, we Must. Move. Forward.

We need to move forward from our outdated assumptions about the CCP and up our own game, leaning into our strengths and undertaking a radical revitalization of America. We can only outcompete the CCP by being the best version of ourselves internally and externally.

To do this, I like to think of four P’s – people, production, partnerships, and protection.

The first P is People. Radically revitalizing America means fixing our broken immigration system. I know this because I’ve lived it.

Fifty years ago, my parents took their three-month old son – namely me – and left New Delhi, India to move to Buffalo, New York in search of the American Dream. They believed that of anywhere in the world, America gave them the best chance to succeed. We cannot outcompete the CCP without bringing more of the world’s best and brightest to our country and keeping them here.

And there is no future where we win without training our own workforce for the jobs of the future. That means up-skilling Americans through trade and technical education and it means stopping discrimination against those without college degrees, but who are “Skilled Through Alternative Routes” – also known as STARs – because of their experience and training. And we need to invest more in K-12 STEM education to drive future tech innovation.

The second P is Production. The CCP wants to dominate emerging technologies from clean energy to AI, to autonomous vehicles, to life-saving medicines. Xi Jinping wants to build what he calls “‘assassin’s mace’ technologies” to weaponize competition over technology itself. Instead we must make sure America – along with our allies and partners – lead in innovating and manufacturing technologies here at home.

The third P is Partnerships. Our ability to cooperate with our allies and partners is an incredible strength. If we stand together with our friends fighting for freedom and opportunity abroad, there is no amount of coercion or disinformation from the CCP that can tear down the rules-based order.

And finally, the last P is Protection. Radically revitalizing America also means protecting our interests and our values. Americans are concerned about the CCP’s hacking, IP theft, and economic dumping, and they don’t want to buy goods made with slave labor.

That’s why we need to aggressively use our trade tools to protect ourselves from the CCP’s unfair economic practices. For instance, we can strengthen customs enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. And we can make sure that Americans are not investing in PRC companies under sanctions for human rights abuses or building up China’s military.

While you are minding my four P’s, I want to throw in one Q – Questioning. Question our leaders, question our direction, question whether we’re living up to our ideals, and then course-correct – that is our strength.

This is something that is hard for the CCP to do. But it’s what you in this audience need to do every day. Question, question, and question.

Speaking of questions, one I get a lot these days is, “with all of the problems in the PRC’s economy today, shouldn’t we just kick them while they’re down?”

My answer? No.

I don’t think our policy toward the CCP depends on whether their economy is growing or stagnating. All the principles I just outlined for our competition still apply.

What we should do is recognize that if the PRC’s economy is declining, that strengthens our hand in negotiations because we are stronger from our robust and growing economy.

Now, some people question diplomatic engagement with the Chinese. But I believe dialogue is always important.

This is the time we tell Xi Jinping: turn back now. Turn back now from this path that you are on. Keep your promises, compete fairly, stop your genocide, and stop your economic and military aggression.

But we cannot be naïve. We have to assume that Xi will do none of those things. Therefore, we need to protect ourselves and take steps to combat aggression and up our own game… by minding our P’s and Q’s.

But there is a chance that maybe, just maybe, just as Xi turned back from his zero-COVID policies after it became clear that his strategy was an utter disaster, he may realize that his policies, instead of making us back down, make us – and our partners and our allies – strengthen our resolve.

Now as a Chicago Bears fan, I have a friendly rivalry with my Republican counterpart on the House Select Committee – namely Chair Mike Gallagher, who represents Green Bay. But America’s competition with the CCP is not a game. It’s not the Bears versus the Packers.

It’s a contest over competing values, economic models, and visions for the world which have a real, concrete impact in our daily lives. It’s a contest that we – and people seeking freedom around the world – cannot lose.

If we move forward clear-eyed and confident – I have absolutely no doubt we will win our competition against the CCP.

Now I understand that we’ve had setbacks in our relationship with the CCP in the past. But as the old saying goes, “a setback is a setup for a comeback.”

Now, it’s time for America’s comeback.

Thank you.

 

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