Prof. ST Hsieh
Director, US-China Energy Industry Forum
626-376-7460
October 23, 2023
Please focus on how much Americans would suffer less than how much Chinese could benefit. No wonder we are in such a mess because politicians from both parties don’t even know how to govern.
First of all, House chaos is not entirely the GOP’s fault. Bipartisan struggle is a norm in the US now. The GOP has a slim majority and their efforts to elect a GOP House Speaker without any Democrat vote is the challenge. However, each politician is towing the party line!
Secondly, it is obvious that any rival of the US will take of advantage of this dysfunction in DC to damage the reputation of the US. Thus the briefing should be made public so the US voters will understand/appreciate the gravity of this homemade challenge and each of us should take the next election very seriously.
Third, every major player in DC should, not play the blame game or point fingers but make constructive suggestions on what changes will be needed so that the US can be spared of this type of embarrassments again.
Fourth, we should also be concerned about how our allies around the world are evaluating this dysfunctions in DC and their conclusions: Is the US an Indispensable Nation in the World? Especially now that the US is staring down two major regional wars that can easily get out of hand.
Democrats seek a classified briefing on whether House chaos helps China
Jonathan Allen
Mon, October 23, 2023 at 8:30 AM PDT·
WASHINGTON — A group of House Democrats is asking top U.S. intelligence officials to arrange a classified briefing for Congress on how China is taking advantage of dysfunction in Washington as Republicans struggle to elect a speaker and the government inches closer to shutting down.
In a letter Monday to National Intelligence Director Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns that was shared first with NBC News, Democrats on the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party wrote that Beijing is using chaos in the Capitol as a propaganda tool. They cited reports in Chinese media outlets as evidence.
“Therefore, we respectfully request a classified briefing from the U.S. Intelligence Community (‘IC’) on how the CCP and our foreign adversaries are leveraging current political dysfunction in the U.S. House of Representatives to discredit democracy globally in their efforts to promote an alternative authoritarian model of governance internationally, enhance their ability to form economic and national security alliances, and harm our standing with strategic partners,” the lawmakers wrote.
“We have no assurances that the Republican-led majority in the House will work in a bipartisan fashion to avoid a government shutdown on Nov. 17,” he said. “We need this briefing to show members of this body how the current political dysfunction harms our national security interests.”
The Democratic lawmakers asked Haines and Burns to address a 10-point series of questions that boil down to what the intelligence community knows about China’s messaging, whether it represents a threat to U.S. interests and whether foreign adversaries have altered their thinking about American national security because of recent events in Congress.
“We already know the Chinese Communist Party is working to capitalize on our chaos and that [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin and [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] had lengthy meetings this past week,” Krishnamoorthi said, “so Congress needs to understand how our leadership vacuum is hurting us on the world stage.”