U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton To Serve On House Select Committee On China

SALEM, MA — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton will serve on the inaugural House Select Committee on China, which was recently formed on a bipartisan basis to focus on the Chinese Community Party's economic, technological and security priorities, and ongoing competition with the United States.

The committee's mission is to "make policy recommendations to strengthen U.S. security and the rules-based international order."

“President Xi (Jianping) and the Chinese Communist Party have made clear, in their words and their actions, that they want to replace the United States as the lone superpower and reshape the global order in favor of authoritarianism," Moulton said in a statement on Wednesday. "And they have no qualms about over-running human rights, liberal values — or entire nations, like Taiwan — that lie in their path."

"This makes the challenge posed by the CCP the greatest security threat of our time. We need to meet this unprecedented challenge with a unified diplomatic, economic, and military strategy that preserves American leadership and avoids war with China. As we celebrate the allied success in Ukraine, we must admit that, in Europe, deterrence failed.

"As a veteran who knows the horrors of war firsthand, I am committed to ensuring that deterrence doesn't fail in the Pacific."

Moulton led a bipartisan CODEL to Taiwan, Guam, and the Philippines in October 2022. During a recent virtual town hall, he warned about the catastrophic results of a military conflict with China.

"The consequences are almost hard to fathom," he said in the Town Hall on Jan. 23. "You could wake up and have two U.S. aircraft carriers at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean — 10,000 sailors' lives gone overnight. That's just one example of what is easily imaginable of what the scale of conflict between the United States and China would be.

"That's why it is such a priority of mine to focus on this issue that, sure admittedly, a lot of people don't think is an issue. Let me tell you it's an issue. ... We have to convince (Chinese President) Xi Jinping that invading Taiwan is a bad idea."

While Moulton has often railed against the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, he said the united front in dealing with the China threat is one area where both parties can and must work together.

"This is one of my utmost policy priorities in the coming Congress, and I am honored to have been selected to serve on the committee," Moulton said. "I look forward to working with Chairman (Mike) Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) and colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

"National security must be a bipartisan issue."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)