U.S. Shouldn’t Underestimate the Threat China Presents to the Free World: Congressman

Communist China is an “existential threat” to the United States, U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said Thursday on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.”

Smith, who serves on the House Committee of Foreign Affairs, expressed optimism that both sides of the political aisle in Washington appear to be finally coming to the realization that the communist government of China under Xi Jinping is not only a threat to his own people, but to the entire world: “He has demonstrated monstrous policies, a genocide against the Muslims, the crushing of the underground Christian church and all other churches, and … a pervasive use of torture [on] political or religious prisoners.”

Smith noted China’s violent takeover of Hong Kong under Xi “despite solemn promises and treaty obligations” to the contrary. “And now he has his eye on Taiwan,” the congressman warned.

In welcoming Smith to the program, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins noted that during the February 28 hearing of the House’s select committee on China, former U.S. national security adviser Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster said, “China poses a greater threat to American interests than did the Soviet Union.” McMaster is currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

People are beginning to realize the serious military threat China presents, Smith agreed, bemoaning the fact the nation is “bristling with capability, courtesy of the United States taxpayer and our big woke corporations that have conveyed that [military] capability to them in all kinds of areas.”

Perkins also noted McMasters said during the committee hearing that a preemptive attack on American soil was possible in the event of a US-China conflict over Taiwan.

Smith believes internally China is in chaos.” This is the horrible consequence of the one child per couple policy which has led to a huge disparity between males and females. There are about 60 million plus missing girls, some of whom would be women of various ages because of the one child per couple forced abortion policy.”

Smith said he has warned of this eventuality for decades, citing the militaristic impact of this population imbalance.

“Not only does it destroy babies and their mothers, but it would also lead to Xi Jinping or whoever the dictator might be at the time to try to project outward and stoke the fires of nationalism,” Smith explained, adding, “And that’s exactly what he is doing.”

“There’s no other place on the face of the earth where there’s a massive genocide taking place in a country that’s not at war,” he said. “It’s at war with its own people.” Smith serves as the chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

“They couldn’t care less about their own people and even more, so couldn’t care less about us,” Smith continued. He said the Communist leaders have no concern for human life. “It’s all throwaway.”

Perkins noted Congressman Smith has introduced a bill that addresses a ghoulish practice in the communist nation —organ harvesting — that is targeting oppressed Chinese citizens.

“It’s a huge moneymaker for the Chinese Communist Party,” Smith pointed out. “It is also for any high official or any official really in the party that is in need of a transplant.” He explained the gruesome practice of organ harvesting is the “coercive taking of a person’s inner organs, including liver, heart, lung, whatever it might be, against their will and almost always resulting in the death of that person.”

The “Stop Forced Harvesting Act of 2023,” which Smith said is on a “fast track” to passage in the House, is expected to also pass the Senate with bipartisan support. The act would place sanctions on any person or entity engaged in the activity, which kills some 100,000 people in China every year.

“This is a big industry,” Perkins said, explaining organ harvesting is a $1 billion industry in China. “People are traveling there for tourism to get organs.” He noted citizens from Muslim countries are traveling to China for organ transplants due to the dietary restrictions of the Uyghurs, who are being victimized by the deadly procedure. 

Smith said the “oppressed peoples of China, including the Falun Gong, the Uyghurs … Christians and others” are the targets of the forced organ removal, which most often benefits Communist party officials.

“It’s a barbaric practice. It’s reminiscent of the medicine practiced by the Nazis” he warned. “And Xi Jinping is directly responsible for making this even worse during his reign of terror.”

Pointing to the fentanyl flooding America’s streets from Mexican drug cartels, Smith said it is easy to trace the illicit drug back to China. American citizens are dying from Chinese fentanyl-laced drugs, he noted, criticizing the Biden administration for responding with nothing of merit to cut off the deadly flow.

Perkins praised Smith for his steadfastness in warning that China is not to be trusted: “You’ve been sounding the alarm on China for a long time … long before balloons were floating across the country and getting people’s attention of their intentions to spy on us.” Smith is one of the two most senior members in the House, having served the 4th District of New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1981.

Smith decried the “false sense that if you trade more with China, they will matriculate from a gross dictatorship to a democracy,” adding, “That hasn’t happened in history. It’s not happening now.”

He pointed back to the Clinton administration’s decision to link human rights with trade in May 1994, saying, “That is when we lost China.” Leaders of U.S. corporations — one after another — have sought to appease one Chinese dictator after another in hopes of gaining economic favor, he explained.

The congressman told Perkins he would never forget the moment when President Barack Obama, with then-Chinese President Jintao Hu at his side in the White House, responded to a reporter’s question about the Communist nation’s record of human rights abuses by telling the reporter China has a “different culture and different type of government.”

In the January 11, 2011, press conference Obama told Associated Press reporter Ben Feller: “China has a different political system than we do. China is at a different stage of development than we are. We come from very different cultures with very different histories.” The U.S. president went on to say, “There are going to be areas where we disagree.” 

“How dare you insult the culture of the Chinese people as if they don’t understand fundamental human rights?” said Smith of Obama, continuing, “Look at what Tiananmen Square was all about as all those young people rallied and then so many were killed in order to try to procure basic fundamental human rights for themselves.”

Perkins stressed it is the Communist Party of China that is the problem, not the Chinese people. “The Chinese people are yearning to be free. They’re trying to throw off this repressive regime. But the totalitarian tactics are so repressive, it is quite difficult.”