Who’s Afraid of the China Select Committee?

Recently, the House Select Committee on the Competition with the Chinese Communist Party released a video highlighting the whirlwind of bipartisan accomplishments and groundbreaking investigations they’ve undertaken. The CCP’s decades-long political warfare upon the United States demanded a response, and the Select Committee met the moment.

It's curious, then, that more than 50 organizations publicly opposed Congress’ reauthorization of the highly effective committee. Closer scrutiny reveals what unites many of the “leading civil society organizations” that oppose the Select Committee: shared funding sources along with CCP ties and talking points.  

The Asian Americans for Advancing Justice (AAAJ) letter leads with the race card, echoing the CCP’s preferred talking points. The AAAJ accused the Select Committee of  “perpetuating…an adversarial framework and pouring…fuel on existing racial animus.” The letter mirrors an August 2023 op-ed published by a CCP mouthpiece claiming the committee “fuels racism” and “fosters anti-China and anti-Asian hate crimes.” Renewing the committee, the AAAJ claimed, would lead to “discrimination and racial profiling” and promote an “adversarial framework.”  

Here's the reality: no organization on the globe leverages racial animosity quite like the CCP itself. Nor does any organization so viciously target Asian Americans, especially the Chinese diaspora community. The CCP deals in racist tropes, runs an ethnostate, and is conducting a genocide against Uyghurs. The Chinese people, tragically, are the CCP’s first and greatest victims, both within China and in diaspora communities. At least 45 million Chinese starved during the Great Leap Forward famine, and another 1.5-2 million were killed or starved during the Cultural Revolution. Thousands were mowed down during the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Party-State executes political prisoners by organ procurement for profit. Today’s Chinese citizen endures the most highly sophisticated surveillance state in world history. The CCP even exports its repression to America’s shores through systemic targeting of the Chinese diaspora.  

In contrast, the Select Committee exposed the CCP’s attacks upon Asian Americans to shield the Chinese diaspora from Beijing’s long arm. The Select Committee publicized the CCP’s "overseas police service stations" that harass ethnic Chinese targets on U.S. soil and highlighted CCP Chairman Xi Jinping’s primary “magic weapon” within America, the intelligence-adjacent United Front Work Department, which cultivates CCP allies and subverts CCP opponents within the United States. 

Even more critically, the Select Committee gave a platform to victims of this surveillance and repression, inviting Chinese dissidents and other CCP targets to tell their stories publicly. They exposed a CCP-linked illegal biolab in California, and explained how American investment and research have funded China’s military buildup. Chinese-Americans inspire much of this work.  

Perhaps most importantly, the Select Committee uncovered the CCP’s explicit sponsorship of America’s fentanyl epidemic along with their role in laundering the profits of the fentanyl trade for Mexico’s cartels. 

The letter signatories are quite telling. The Committee of 100 (C100) is perhaps the most infamous signatory, with extensive CCP ties “according to multiple reports in Chinese-language media and United Front organizations.” Journalist Didi Kirsten Tatlow found that Xi Jinping himself “has described C100 as a ‘friendly organization,’” and the group “regularly meets with top Chinese leaders.”  

Another signatory, the Florida Asian American Justice Alliance (FAAJA), is funded by the East West Bank’s foundation. Dominic Ng, the bank’s CEO and foundation director, formerly chaired C100 and is reportedly affiliated with several additional United Front groups. FAAJA’s leadership, Echo Meisheng King and Hongwei Shang, were recently honored by the counselor from the Chinese Embassy at an overseas Chinese celebration in Boca Raton. The Chinese Ambassador’s ominous message told attendees to continue “integrating China and foreign countries” by “drawing a ‘concentric circle’ of overseas Chinese communities.”  

Other letter signatories funded by the East West Bank Foundation include the AAAJ, the Quincy Institute, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Stop AAPI Hate, and the Organization of Chinese Americans-Asian Pacific American Advocates Houston chapter.  

The AAAJ itself, founded by C100 member Stewart Kwoh, funds at least seven letter signatories and is affiliated with another. As a director of the Cathay Bank Foundation, Kwoh coordinates with the Chinese Consul in L.A. He even flew to China to deliver research on Chinese-American philanthropy to senior intelligence officials from the CCP’s United Front Work Department. AAAJ-funded groups also oppose state legislation inspired by the Select Committee’s work. 

The Select Committee’s detractors turn out to be its validators. A seemingly organic crop of letter signatories is actually an astroturf campaign united by funding, hypocrisy, and CCP ties.  

The AAAJ should drop the race card and acknowledge the truth: the CCP poses a grave threat to Chinese Americans. The Select Committee’s work to counter the CCP makes Chinese Americans safe.