House Speaker Kevin McCarthy blasted the volatile economic policies of China’s ruling Communist Party, and called on the US to reduce its reliance on the world’s second-largest economy.
(Bloomberg) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy blasted the volatile economic policies of China’s ruling Communist Party, and called on the US to reduce its reliance on the world’s second-largest economy.
“You watch the attack on the private sector,” McCarthy told a gathering of reporters during a visit to Tokyo on Thursday. “They shifted their policies, they shifted their beliefs, allowing the Communist Party to control more.”
McCarthy said the House committee he’s formed to examine China’s economic behavior is “really looking at areas that America and our allies shouldn’t be dependent upon them,” citing sectors such as medical supplies and critical minerals.
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McCarthy has drawn China’s ire in the past, most notably for meeting Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in California in April. Beijing said that sit down “damages China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and ordered large-scale military drills around the archipelago of 23 million people, which it claims as its own territory.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has used his decade in power to reassert the Communist Party’s authority in many walks of life. That’s included crackdowns on the education, technology and property sectors that wiped billions of dollars off the market value of some of its biggest companies, spooking foreign investors.
It has only recently started easing its campaign targeting the private sector, which included reining in internet giants such as Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang warned governments in a speech in June that “politicization of economic issues” would only fragment the world, comments that came as the US and Europe move to “de-risk” supply chains.
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