House’s first China Committee hearing highlights Taiwan defenses

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers made the case for arming Taiwan when the House select committee on China convened its first hearing on Tuesday.

Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., both featured Taiwan prominently in their opening questions to the four witnesses that included two national security advisers to former President Donald Trump: H.R. McMaster and Matthew Pottinger.

McMaster noted the $19 billion backlog in State Department-approved arms sales for Taiwan and said “hard power matters and what matters much more than pledges of more defense sales, for example, are real capabilities on the ground and integrated, in this case, with the Taiwanese armed forces.”

“What’s really important is the need for us to recognize that we need to build our defense capabilities,” McMaster added.

Gallagher, who has likened U.S.-China competition to “a new Cold War,” has vowed to “arm Taiwan to the teeth” to deter a Chinese invasion. Beijing views Taiwan — one of the world’s leading supplier of semiconductors — as a breakaway province and has vowed to retake by force if necessary. The Wisconsin Republican aims to use the committee to explain what Congress considers to be some of the biggest threats from China to the American public.

Defense News first reported on the Taiwan arms sale backlog last year , which is in large part due to supply chain issues and constrained production capabilities. However, bureaucratic hold-ups within the U.S. foreign military sales process can also play a role in backlogs.

For his part, Khrisnamoorthi referenced a recent war game from the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank that found China would fail to retake Taiwan if they tried to do so today because of capability gaps. (That same war game also found the U.S. defense industrial base is not prepared for a battle over Taiwan as it would run out of long-range, precision guided munitions in less than one week.)

“The People’s Liberation Army has been receiving massive amounts of investment that increased by double digits in many years precisely to try to fill gaps that they would need to fill in order to successfully invade Taiwan,” said Pottinger. “It includes things like amphibious lift: more ships that can carry tanks and equipment. It includes more missiles to add to the already thousands of missiles that are pointed at Taiwan.”

Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., made it a point to note that a Chinese frigate design closely resembled Austal USA’s littoral combat ship, which is best by numerous problems . (Dunn’s district includes the Panama City-based Eastern Shipbuilding, which recently lost a Coast Guard cutter contract to Austal’s shipyard in Alabama.)

“There are a lot of weapons systems that the People’s Liberation Army has designed and fielded that look a lot like our designs and our capabilities,” McMaster said as a general response, noting that he was unfamiliar with the specific littoral combat ship situation. “And that is because we have been lax in the area of counter-espionage and in enterprise hardening.”

The wide-ranging hearing featured 13 Republican and 11 Democratic lawmakers also weighing in on everything from Chinese human rights abuses to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to banning TikTok.

Lawmakers and the witnesses leaned into the multimedia format of the hearing with videos depicting China’s human rights abuses, Chinese Communist Party ideology and graphics depicting the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and growing trade deficits with Beijing.

Two protesters from the anti-war group Code Pink interrupted McMaster’s opening remarks, calling for “collaboration not competition” and accusing the committee of “saber rattling” before Capitol police officers removed them.

Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.

华盛顿——周二，众议院中国问题特别委员会召开首次听证会，议员们为武装台湾辩护。

委员会主席、威斯康星州共和党人迈克·加拉格尔和资深成员、伊利诺伊州民主党人拉贾·克里希纳穆尔蒂在向四位证人（其中包括前总统唐纳德·特朗普的两名国家安全顾问：H·R·麦克马斯特和马修·波廷格）提出的第一个问题中，都重点提到了台湾问题。

麦克马斯特指出，国务院批准的对台军售积压了 190 亿美元，并表示“硬实力很重要，比承诺增加国防销售更重要的是实际的地面能力，在这种情况下，还要与台湾武装部队相结合。”

麦克马斯特补充说：“真正重要的是，我们需要认识到我们需要加强国防能力。”

加拉格尔曾将美中竞争比作“新冷战”，并誓言要“武装台湾到牙齿”，以阻止中国入侵。北京将台湾——世界领先的半导体供应地之一——视为其分离省份，并誓言必要时将武力收复。这位来自威斯康星州的共和党人计划利用委员会的听证会，向国会解释他们认为中国对美国公众构成的一些最大威胁。

《防务新闻》去年率先报道了台湾军售订单积压的情况，这主要是由于供应链问题和产能受限造成的。然而，美国对外军售流程中的官僚主义拖延也是造成订单积压的原因之一。

克里希纳穆尔蒂则援引了战略与国际研究中心智库最近的一项兵棋推演，该推演发现，由于能力差距，中国如果今天试图收复台湾将以失败告终。（同一项兵棋推演还发现，美国的国防工业基础并未做好应对台湾战争的准备，因为其远程精确制导武器将在不到一周的时间内耗尽。）

“解放军多年来获得了巨额投资，而且这些投资每年都以两位数的速度增长，其目的正是为了填补他们入侵台湾所需的各种缺口，”波廷格说。“这包括两栖登陆舰艇：更多能够运载坦克和装备的舰艇。也包括更多导弹，以增加已经瞄准台湾的数千枚导弹的数量。”

佛罗里达州共和党众议员尼尔·邓恩特意指出，中国一款护卫舰的设计与美国奥斯塔造船厂的濒海战斗舰非常相似，而后者存在诸多问题。（邓恩的选区包括位于巴拿马城的东方造船厂，该公司最近失去了一份海岸警卫队巡逻艇的合同，该合同被奥斯塔位于阿拉巴马州的造船厂夺走。）

麦克马斯特在回应中表示：“解放军设计和部署的许多武器系统与我们的设计和能力非常相似。”他同时指出，自己并不了解濒海战斗舰的具体情况。“这是因为我们在反间谍和安全防护方面一直有所松懈。”

这场内容广泛的听证会邀请了 13 位共和党议员和 11 位民主党议员，他们就从中国侵犯人权到美国制造业工作岗位流失，再到禁止 TikTok 等各种问题发表了看法。

议员和证人充分利用了听证会的多媒体形式，播放了描绘中国侵犯人权行为、中国共产党意识形态的视频，以及描绘美国制造业工作岗位流失和对北京贸易逆差不断扩大的图表。

反战组织“粉红代码”（Code Pink）的两名抗议者打断了麦克马斯特的开幕致辞，呼吁“合作而非竞争”，并指责委员会“虚张声势”，随后国会警察将他们带走。

布莱恩特·哈里斯是《防务新闻》的国会记者。自2014年以来，他一直在华盛顿报道美国外交政策、国家安全、国际事务和政治。他还曾为《外交政策》、《Al-Monitor》、《半岛电视台英语频道》和IPS新闻撰稿。