Two protesters were escorted out of the House select committee hearing on the Chinese Community Party (CCP) after interrupting the opening statements of H.R. McMaster, former national security adviser.
Tuesday’s hearing marks the first of the subcommittee since it was established in January after House members on both sides voted in overwhelming support to create a bipartisan panel to examine President Joe Biden‘s approach toward China.
McMaster, who served under the administration of former President Donald Trump, was one of four guests invited to testify before the committee led by Republican Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin. During McMaster’s opening remarks, a woman holding a sign that read “China is not our Enemy” stood up and interrupted him, shouting, “We need cooperation, not competition.”
The woman, who was promptly escorted out, was also wearing a pink shirt that read “money for the poor not for war.”
McMaster, who paused momentarily to allow security to remove her, was halted again about 16 seconds later by a second protester, holding a sign that read “Stop Asian Hate.”
The man was booed by the crowd, as Gallagher told him, “Your sign is upside down.”
Both protesters’ signs also contained the phrase “CODEPINK,” an anti-war organization that also supports human rights initiatives. The grassroots group posted a video of the interruptions on its Twitter account, writing that its members were calling “for an end to the warmongering.”
BREAKING: The House is holding a special hearing to fearmonger over China, featuring China hawks from the Trump administration like H.R. McMaster.
CODEPINK just disrupted them to call for an end to the warmongering – #ChinaIsNotOurEnemy! pic.twitter.com/ZLYUY0lzJU
— CODEPINK (@codepink) March 1, 2023
The subcommittee is intended to help advise the White House on everything from economic policy to the U.S. military posture in Asia in a moment where tensions with the CCP are running high—particularly after a Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted and destroyed over the U.S. this month.
During his opening remarks, Gallagher said that the CCP has been using an “America against America” strategy “to undermine our country.”
“This strategy has worked well in the past, and the CCP is confident that it will work again,” Gallagher added. “Our task on this committee is to ensure that it does not.”
Prior to being interrupted, McMaster said it was a “privilege to testify” before the subcommittee “at this critical moment for our nation and the free world.”
“This committee’s work is urgent and important because the United States has fallen behind in the consequential competition with the Chinese Community Party,” McMaster said.
“For too long, leaders across the private sector, in academia, industry and finance, as well as in the public sector across multiple administrations and congresses, clung to the assumption that China, having been welcomed into the international system, would play by the rules and, as China prospered, would liberalize its economy and its form of governance,” he added.
McMaster also said the protesters’ interruptions “are indicative of really the effect that the United Front Work Department has had.” The division of the CCP is tasked with influencing overseas groups to appeal to the Chinese government.
“I think they have reinforced to some degree what you might call a curriculum of self-loathing that has taken hold in academia for many years,” McMaster continued. “They reinforce, I think, the idea that America is the problem in the world and only if America disengages or, in this case becomes more passive, then things will get better.”
Newsweek has reached out to the Chinese foreign ministry for comment.
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