Washington Update

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping held their sixth conversation since Biden took office, building upon discussions from their summit in San Francisco last November. According to the US readout, Biden touched on US export controls, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Russia, among other issues important to US economic and national security.

On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that Representative John Moolenaar (R-MI) will serve as the next chair of the Select Committee on the CCP. This comes after current chair, Mike Gallagher (R-WI), announced last week that April 19 will be his last day in Congress.

During a Wednesday House Agriculture Committee hearing, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle expressed concern about the potential dangers posed by China acquiring more US farmland. However, not all are on board with the approach some states have taken to restrict these transactions.

On Wednesday, the House passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act by a margin of 365 to 65, sending it to the Senate. The bill, led by House Select Committee on the CCP Chair Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), would prohibit TikTok from being hosted in app stores in the United States unless the app separates from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

In his State of the Union address last night, President Joe Biden highlighted his administration’s approach to industrial policy and competition with China. Early in his speech, he praised the CHIPS and Science Act for spurring increased domestic private-sector investment in semiconductors.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden issued a long-anticipated data executive order (EO) that directs the Justice Department (DOJ) to establish regulations limiting the transfer of sensitive US personal data to countries of concern, including China.

During a speech at the Munich Security Conference last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray outlined his concerns about the threat posed by China’s hacking program, which Wray described as larger than that of every other major nation combined. The topic later received attention on Capitol Hill, partly in response to President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign launching a new TikTok account.

Last weekend, Chair of the Select Committee on the CCP Mike Gallagher (R-WI) announced that he is not running for reelection. His retirement from Congress surprised many, as the young congressman was considered a rising star, particularly on foreign policy.

On Monday and Tuesday, a delegation from the US Treasury Department, led by Under Secretary for International Affairs Jay Shambaugh, traveled to Beijing for the third meeting of the two countries’ recently established Economic Working Group. It was the working group’s first meeting in 2024 and its first in-person meeting in China.

Last Friday through Saturday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to broker details on several areas of US-China cooperation agreed upon by President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping late last year. Sullivan and Wang discussed recent efforts, such as officially resuming military-to-military dialogue between the United States and China earlier this month, and plans for the future, including the possibility of hosting a US-China dialogue focused on AI.