Since January 2023, just about a dozen congressional staff have ventured to the mainland, a fraction of past levels. Of those, six accompanied US senator Chuck Schumer’s six-member delegation to China and South Korea last October – the only such delegation to visit the country this congressional session.
“Congressional staffers are perhaps the most important cog in the machine because they’re the ones that, more often than not, help to draft the scope of legislation, and help to flesh out the issues for their members who may not be experts on the issue and may rely on them,” said Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council, a conservative Washington-based think tank.
Unlike trips made by lawmakers, staff travel is lower-profile and allows participants to engage on a more granular level.
Berman, recently returned from leading congressional staff to the mainland, believed the dynamic held unique value, observing: “When you have members of Congress, the engagements become much more pro forma, much more performative.”
Even five years ago, China travel was considered unexceptional. Combining official visits and privately financed trips listed on Legistorm, a congressional transparency website, at least 27 staff and 15 lawmakers paid visits to the mainland in 2019 alone.
But as congressional travel to the mainland has receded since January 2023, during the same period at least 28 lawmakers and 61 House and Senate staff have travelled to Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing sees as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary.
(Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.)
Those journeying to Taiwan have included members and staff of Beijing’s most vocal critic on Capitol Hill: the House select committee on strategic competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). No select committee staffer or member has gone to the mainland since the panel’s inception in early 2023.
Similarly, no staff or member of pivotal congressional advisory bodies on China policy like the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) have visited in the current two-year session.
The dearth of travel is striking, for it underscores the adversarial tone of a number of China-related legislation pending in Washington.
According to the US-China Business Council, about 700 such bills and resolutions have been introduced in the current session. Some that would restrict outbound investment and prevent the federal government from contracting with major Chinese biotech firms are expected to have wide-ranging effects on American supply chains.
Some observers attribute the decline in visits, at least in part, to China’s actions.
In retaliation for US sanctions, Beijing in recent years has sanctioned several lawmakers, such as Democratic congressman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, Republican congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, and Republican senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Cotton, McGovern, Rubio and Smith sit on the CECC, which is tasked with monitoring China’s record on rule of law and human rights. Beijing sanctioned the CECC as a body in 2020.
It also sanctioned former USCC commissioner Carolyn Bartholomew in 2021, who chaired the body that year. And in May, Beijing sanctioned Mike Gallagher, former chair of the House select committee on China, a month after he resigned from Congress. Gallagher travelled to Taiwan twice this congressional session.
US congressional staff usually escape scrutiny. But in 2021 Beijing banned then-House Appropriations Committee aide Jon Stivers, who had previously served as the CECC’s staff director. In 2022, Beijing sanctioned Todd Stein, now CECC deputy staff director.
Smith, the CECC’s chair, has repeatedly requested permission from Beijing to travel to Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has been accused of human-rights abuses against the Uygur population.
A commission spokesperson told the Post “there are no plans in place for the CECC staff to visit mainland China and Hong Kong before the end of the year unless the PRC agrees to Representative Smith’s request for an unhindered visit to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region”.
The USCC said in a statement that its staff would consider travel to China in the future, without elaborating why it did not this congressional session. The House select committee on China did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Another impediment to congressional travel has been the cessation of Chinese government-sponsored programmes conducted under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act (MECEA).
In 2020, then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced the termination of five programmes that had enabled Beijing to fund travel for American lawmakers and congressional staff.
Pompeo said the trips focused primarily on engagement with CCP officials rather than Chinese people. He called the programmes “soft-power propaganda tools” that were “not mutually beneficial”.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a query about its current stance on MECEA trips to China.
MECEA organisers stress that the trips, all funded by foreign governments, provide US government staff with valuable global insights at no expense to American taxpayers.
The itineraries often incorporate discussions with officials as well as excursions to historical and cultural sites. At one point, China was the biggest sponsor of the visits.
MECEA-authorised funding had allowed US non-profits like the National Committee on US-China Relations (NCUSCR) to facilitate two to three staff delegations to China per year, numbering about 12 participants each, according to Jessica Bissett of the NCUSCR. (The committee also facilitates member delegations, which do not use MECEA funds.)
American groups routinely partner with Chinese counterparts to ease access to actors on the ground. MECEA trips facilitated by the NCUSCR normally entailed American China experts travelling with congressional staff, meetings with government and non-government actors on the mainland and significant NCUSCR input on the itinerary.
Bissett sees immense value in the visits, noting they often mark congressional aides’ first trips to China, but said their cost made them tough to sustain without Chinese government funding.
The current political climate around China and a lack of political will had made arranging congressional trips difficult, she added.
As a non-partisan organisation, NCUSCR’s China trips must be bipartisan, but many lawmakers, particularly Republicans, have been wary of committing to such travel ahead of US elections this November.
Undeterred, the American Foreign Policy Council raised money from US donors and set up two week-long visits over the past year in which a total of five congressional staff – two Democrats and three Republicans – joined China experts like Joshua Eisenman of the University of Notre Dame.
One of the five, who worked on national-security affairs and requested anonymity, said directly speaking to Chinese government officials and experiencing the culture on the ground first-hand gave him a deeper understanding of the bilateral relationship.
“An intensive trip of that length allows for more in-depth discussion on topics than some of the meetings that take place or don’t take place in [Washington] DC,” he said. “The whole concept of strategic empathy requires actually understanding the other side.”
As for organisers, they viewed the visits as opportunities to let staff glimpse China for themselves – good, bad or otherwise – rather than imposing a specific view.
Beijing is under no illusion that these trips will lead to immediate positive outcomes, they say.
“There is maybe hope that if enough people come to China and see it for themselves, that perhaps in the long run, that could have some sort of benefit,” said Bissett.
In a statement to the Post, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said China had always welcomed congressional aides and members and that Washington was largely responsible for the dearth of legislative engagement.
“China recognises the great importance of the US Congress in American political life,” Liu said. “Congressional members and aides are welcome to visit China to experience a true, three-dimensional and comprehensive China.”
Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council said going to China was vital because the country has become increasingly closed off and Sino-American relations are at risk of devolving into accidental conflict.
“When you have a relationship that’s going well, this sort of thing is not necessary,” he explained. “When you have a fraught relationship, trips like these create a level of granularity or expertise that helps both sides avoid miscalculation.”
Berman’s think tank will continue booking travel to China, he added, as long as it could serve American interests.
“That there’s such a small number of trips right now is a testament to the fact that we may have entered the era of diminishing returns.”