House China panel to kick off with ex-Trump officials on fending off Beijing bid for global primacy

Former Trump administration officials will testify before the House Select Committee on China on Tuesday evening in the panel's first formal hearing.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pledged to form a select committee on China in the runup to the 2022 midterm elections.

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher is serving as chairman of the committee, and Illinois Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi is the ranking member.

Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, former Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger, Wei Jingsheng, a human rights activist, and Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, are all expected to testify, according to Gallagher's office.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing wrote on Twitter that Paul will discuss the "importance of limiting the CCP's influence on our economy" at Tuesday's hearing.

In a December op-ed, Gallagher and McCarthy outlined the mission of the new select committee, which included restoring supply chains, ending "critical economic dependencies on China," strengthening the military, ending the Chinese government's "theft of American personal data and intellectual property," and contrasting the Chinese Communist Party's "techno-totalitarian state with the values of the Free World."

Gallagher just returned from a trip to Taiwan. The vulnerability of a potential invasion from China is a major issue the committee is expected to focus on in a future hearing.

"I can tell you that the time to arm Taiwan to the teeth was yesterday," he said, reflecting on the trip.