WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): : The prestigious Foreign Policy magazine has portrayed Indian American Democratic lawmaker Raja Krishnamoorthi and Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher as ‘The Masterminds’ of Washington’s getting tough on China Policy.
Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi, are the chair and ranking member of “what is basically the hottest ticket in Washington” — the House of Representatives’ China Committee, as the magazine put it. The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which is its full name, is focused exclusively on how to map out a new era of US competition with China. Describing the new era of US competition with China as “the most significant strategic shift in American foreign policy in decades,” Foreign Policy said “Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are in the driver’s seat” insofar as Congress’ role in the action.
Since the committee was first formed in January, Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi have held numerous high-profile hearings, issued a slew of reports, toured the country, and sent a flurry of letters to private companies and top Biden administration officials for their work, the magazine noted.
The House China Committee has no lawmaking authority, but it can conduct investigations and lengthy research projects, issue subpoenas, issue policy recommendations, and seed all of its work into other House committees with authority over major budget and legislative issues, such as the House Armed Services Committee, Ways and Means Committee, or Finance Committee.
“In short, this is the beating heart of Congress’s policy agenda on China, giving Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi outsized voices on what most in Washington consider the new, defining US foreign-policy challenge,” Foreign Policy wrote suggesting, “What the committee sets its sights on next is a good indication of where US policy will go.” There are three broad factors that make the House China Committee a bastion of bipartisanship and productivity, it said The first is the scale of the threat from China, at least in the sense of how 95 percent of Washington sees it—something most Republicans and Democrats, if not the rest of the world, agree on.
The second is the fact that both Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are from politically safe districts and are genuine policy wonks, as described by themselves as well as numerous other US lawmakers, Congressional aides, and officials interviewed for this story. Both are seasoned members of the House Intelligence Committee. (Gallagher, a Marine Corps veteran, also earned his PhD in international relations from Georgetown).
Without uphill reelection battles, both say the House China Committee is a top priority in their jobs, according to Foreign Policy. “I devote my most productive hours such as they exist to this,” Gallagher told the magazine. “I don’t have to worry about the political side of things per se. So, it frees up time to focus on policy.”
Krishnamoorthi agreed, saying he spends a lot of time on the committee’s work. “I don’t have a life,” he said.
The third factor is that the two congressmen actually seem to get along, Foreign Policy said.