U.S. lawmakers began a wide-ranging two-year investigation into U.S. strategic competition with China Tuesday night, with testimony from Chinese human rights activists and former U.S. national security advisers.

The start of the probe came two weeks after the United States shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon off the South Carolina coast.

“This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century. And the most fundamental freedoms are at stake,” said Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher, chair of the 24-member House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with China. “The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is laser-focused on its vision for the future, a world crowded with techno totalitarian surveillance states where human rights are subordinate to the whims of the party.”

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the committee, highlighted the need for bipartisan cooperation.

“We must recognize that the CCP wants us to be fractious, partisan and prejudiced,” Krishnamoorthi said. “In fact, the CCP hopes for it. But what they don’t get is that the diversity of our viewpoints and backgrounds is not a bug in America’s operating system. It is our defining feature and strength.”

Former national security advisers who served during the administration of President Donald Trump warned lawmakers at the hearing Tuesday that the United States must make up ground with China.

“United States and other nations across the free world underwrote the erosion of their competitive advantages through the transfer of capital and technology to a strategic competitor,” H.R. McMaster told the committee.

President Joe Biden said earlier this year that the United States is in competition with China, not in conflict. But witnesses told the panel that China sees the relationship differently.

“There’s really no excuse anymore for being fooled about Beijing’s intentions,” former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger said. “And the canon of Chairman Xi’s publicly available statements is too voluminous, and the accumulated actions of his regime to brazen, to be misunderstood this late hour.”

The committee’s wide-ranging exploration will allow for new perspectives on security threats. Republican Congressman Dan Newhouse told VOA he is concerned about Chinese land purchases in agricultural areas of the United States.

“Can you imagine anything more precarious than having our food supply — perhaps only a link in that food supply chain — being compromised in a potential conflict with someone that is not our friend?” said Newhouse, who is co-sponsoring legislation on the matter.

Members of the committee also told VOA that China’s surveillance balloon is only a small part of the security threat.

“It’s literally every day on the phones of Americans, and that the threat doesn’t end there — China is a massive military threat,” Republican Congressman Dusty Johnson said. “Their navy is larger, and many argue more powerful, than America’s. They have more intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the United States does. Their capabilities and things like hypersonics far outstrip where America is today.”

While the first hearing focused on security concerns, the committee’s work is expected to address a wide range of issues in the relationship – from economic and agricultural competition to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The committee is considering hearings outside Capitol Hill for a firsthand look at possible threats to critical infrastructure.
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U.S. lawmakers launched a wide-ranging two-year investigation into U.S. strategic competition with China on Tuesday night, hearing from Chinese human rights activists and former national security advisers. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson spoke to several members of the committee about the issues they want investigated moving forward. Videographer: Mary Cieslak
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Chicago’s incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her re-election bid on Tuesday, with vote totals showing that two of her rivals will face each other in an April runoff ballot. 

Paul Vallas, the former public schools chief in Chicago and Philadelphia who ran unsuccessfully for Chicago mayor in 2019, secured the top spot, taking 34.9% of the vote with 91% of precincts reporting, the Chicago Tribune reported. 

Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, secured the other spot in the runoff race, taking 20.2% of votes. Lightfoot had 16.4% of vote totals, and there were not enough votes outstanding for her to make up the ground between her and Johnson. 

Polls showed public safety is by far the top concern among residents of the third-largest U.S. city. 

The campaign has tested Democratic messaging on policing in the U.S., three years after widespread protests following the police murder of George Floyd and months after Republicans sought to bludgeon Democrats over the issue in the 2022 midterm elections. 

The Chicago race is technically non-partisan, but every candidate identifies as a Democrat in the heavily left-leaning city. 

Lightfoot, the first Black woman and first openly gay person to serve as the city’s mayor, is bidding for a second four-year term. She emerged as a surprise victor in 2019, campaigning as an outsider who would end corruption. 

But her handling of a series of crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, racial justice protests, a protracted teachers’ strike and a spike in crime, sapped her popular support. 

There were more than 800 murders in Chicago in 2021, the most in a quarter-century. The homicide rate dropped 14% in 2022 but remained nearly 40% higher than in 2019. 

Lightfoot has said the 2022 drop in murders and shootings shows that her strategies, such as hiring more officers and focusing on illegal guns, are having an impact. 

Natalie Pauls, 53, a healthcare worker who voted in downtown Chicago and declined to say who she cast her ballot for, reflected the sentiment of many voters when she said that crime was a top concern, but she did not think any single candidate really stood out for her. 

“I want someone who is going to manage the police in a way where we are not seeing African Americans mistreated,” she said.   

Lost support 

Lightfoot has clashed with the police and teachers unions. 

The police are backing Vallas, and the teachers endorsed Johnson. Vallas is running to Lightfoot’s right, while Johnson is courting the progressive vote. 

Vallas’ campaign website asserts the city has been “surrendered” to criminals, and he has vowed to hire more officers and increase community patrols. 

His focus on safety has put him at the top of most polls, though Lightfoot has attacked him for telling an interviewer in 2009 that he was “more of a Republican than a Democrat.” 

In a recent advertisement, Lightfoot accused Johnson of wanting to “defund the police.” The ad cited a 2020 appearance in which he described the slogan as a “real political goal” in the wake of the Floyd protests. 

As a mayoral candidate, Johnson has responded by saying he wants to spend more resources on programs such as mental health treatment but does not intend to cut the police budget. 
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The U.S. House Armed Services Committee held a hearing Tuesday with top Pentagon officials to discuss the tens of billions of dollars the United States has spent on security assistance to Ukraine. Opinions remain split within parties on everything from continuing assistance to the type of training and equipment that needs to be provided next. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has more.
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U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration urged Congress on Tuesday to reauthorize a controversial surveillance program that officials say has become a vital tool of protecting the United States from all manner of threats, from foreign terrorist attacks to Chinese efforts to steal U.S. technology.

The program, established in 2008 under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allows U.S. spy agencies to collect the online communications of foreigners for intelligence purposes but can also result in “incidental collection” of U.S. citizens’ messages. 

Although Congress has reauthorized the program twice in the past, the bipartisan support that it once enjoyed has ebbed in recent years, leaving officials worried about the specter of losing a powerful weapon in the national security arsenal.

“What keeps me up at night is thinking about what could happen if we do not renew section 702 of FISA,” said Matt Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security, speaking at the Brookings Institution.

Olsen’s appearance at the influential Washington think tank was part of what he called an “all-out effort” by the Biden administration to ensure Congress reauthorizes the law before it lapses at the end of the year.

In a joint letter to top congressional Republicans and Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the surveillance program’s renewal was a “top legislative priority” for the Biden administration.

“Over the last 15 years, Section 702 has proven invaluable again and again in protecting American lives and U.S. national security,” the two officials wrote.

Intelligence information obtained under Section 702 has been used to identify threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, they said, adding that it “contributed” to the success of a drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri last summer.

“It has become clear that there is no way to replicate Section 702’s speed, reliability, specificity, and insight,” Garland and Haines wrote, urging Congress to “promptly reauthorize” the law.

In a statement, national security adviser Jake Sullivan added his voice to the administration’s call.

“This authority is an invaluable tool that continues to protect Americans every day and is crucial to ensuring that U.S. defense, intelligence and law enforcement agencies can respond to threats from the People’s Republic of China, Russia, nefarious cyber actors, terrorists and those who seek to harm our critical infrastructure,” Sullivan said.

Although the law faces a December 31 expiration date, Olsen urged Congress to act as far in advance of the deadline as possible.

Garland is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, while Haines will appear before both the Senate and the House intelligence committees next week. Both officials will likely face tough questions from lawmakers about the surveillance program.

Opposition to the program is even stiffer in the House where newly empowered Republicans, upset over the wiretapping of a Trump campaign aide in 2016 and other alleged abuses, have formed a “select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government” against conservatives.

Congressional Republicans opposed to renewing the program have found an improbable group of allies: civil liberties and privacy rights advocates.

Among the program’s most vociferous critics is the American Civil Liberties Union.

Patrick Toomey, deputy project director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said the program has become a “spying tool” for the FBI.

“The government claims to be targeting people overseas, but it’s clearer than ever that agents are using this surveillance as a backdoor into Americans’ private emails and messages,” Toomey said in a statement to VOA.

In what the ACLU and other critics deride as a “backdoor search loophole,” FBI analysts are allowed to search the data collected through the program by running queries using Americans’ personally identifying information.

“The FBI is amassing huge quantities of protected communications and then searching through them millions of times each year without a warrant,” Toomey said.

Olsen acknowledged past “mistakes” and “improper conduct” on the part of FBI analysts but said the Justice Department instituted a series of changes designed to address concerns about the program.

In their letter, Garland and Haines noted that the surveillance authority under Section 702 “may not be directed against Americans at home or abroad, or any person regardless of nationality, known to be located in the United States.”

But Toomey said the Biden administration is seeking reauthorization of the program “without significant reforms that will protect Americans.”
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