Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to restrict investments in China, in anticipation of a White House executive order on the matter.
"While I applaud you for taking on the vital issue of outbound investment, I urge you to consider adopting several core principles that will ensure your (executive order) meets the moment with the urgency, clarity, and breadth required to address the serious national security issues that we face," Mr. Gallagher, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, wrote in the Thursday letter.
Specifically, Mr. Gallagher called on the president to:
- Restrict both private and public investments in China.
- Restrict investments in sectors "relevant to national security and central to the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party's) technological rise, as well as those connected to PRC's (People's Republic of China's) forced labor and genocide."
- Hold Chinese companies to the same due diligence standards as U.S. companies.
- Avoid creating a case-by-case basis for Chinese companies to be evaluated.
- Consult with allies as well as urge them to follow suit on such restrictions.
"If American capital continues to flow to Chinese military companies, we are at risk of funding our own destruction," Mr. Gallagher said in a news release Thursday. "Wall Street needs to recognize that investing in critical technology sectors in the PRC endangers our service members, imperils the targets of CCP human rights abuses, and enhances systemic risks for the global economy. That's a deadly cocktail the American people didn't order and don't want to be served."
On Tuesday, Mr. Gallagher, along with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.; Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich.; Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va.; and Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., reintroduced a bill that would require pension funds and endowments to divest their investments in Chinese companies or lose their tax-exempt status.
