WASHINGTON—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is leading a bipartisan congressional delegation to China that would make him the highest ranking congressional official to visit the country as tensions between the world’s two top powers continue to rise.
Speaking to reporters on Sept. 13 following a forum on artificial intelligence, Mr. Schumer declined to share details about his trip, which follows a number of visits by senior Biden administration officials to the country, such as Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“I’m not going to get into my China trip,” he said, adding that Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) has been “one of the leaders” spearheading this trip. It’s unclear when the trip, which includes a stop to Japan and South Korea, will take place.
In recent months, four top U.S. officials have gone to China to revive trade and military ties as the administration pursues a policy of engagement alongside de-risking.
Mr. Schumer has pushed for a tougher stance on China. The senator last year helped to direct tens of billions of dollars to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry through the Chip and Science Act. In May, he directed Democrats to unveil a legislative plan dubbed as China Competition Bill 2.0 to further strengthen U.S. manufacturing and limit flow of technology to China.
Mr. Schumer began the AI Insight Forum on Wednesday by warning about the danger of China gaining a technological edge.
“Other governments, including adversaries like China, are investing huge resources to get ahead. We could fall behind, to the detriment of our national security,” he said.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who chairs the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, said he was skeptical that the delegation is “going to be able to do a robust trip.”
“It just depends on their itinerary, which I haven’t seen yet,” he told reporters on Sept. 13.
“A lot of people would ask us if we’re going to go to China, and I said, ‘I have no interest in sitting in a room getting lectured by CCP officials,’” he told The Epoch Times, adding that he has reservations about how much control lawmakers have over their travel schedule in the socialist country.
“I’d be curious to see what they actually plan to do,” he said. If they go, he said, the delegation should bring a message that “the United States Congress, in bipartisan fashion, strongly condemns the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang,” the increasing aggression directed at Taiwan, and the “economic coercion that we’re seeing against our allies, including what the CCP is trying to do to Japan.”
When then-House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a high profile trip to Taiwan last August—the first U.S. House Speaker to do so in 25 years—the regime retaliated by suspending regular contact with the U.S. military.
Asked if he would support Mr. Schumer’s delegation to make a Taiwan stopover, Mr. Gallagher, who was supportive of Ms. Pelosi’s Taiwan visit and had made such a trip in February himself, responded, “That’d be great.”
“The more elected officials that go there—[to] see the vibrant democracy in Taiwan [and] also see the geographic challenges involved in a potential PLA invasion of Taiwan—the better we’ll be able to design policy here to help Taiwan defend itself.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to Mr. Schumer’s office for comment.
From The Epoch Times