PEORIA, Ill. – A Congressman with ties to Peoria says there’s multiple concerns with China’s relationship with the United States.
Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, a graduate of Richwoods High School, serves Illinois’ 8th Congressional District, and is the Ranking Member on the House China Committee.
One of Krishnamoorthi’s concerns lies with the supply chain, specifically with prescription medicine. He tells WMBD’s “Greg and Dan” that 90% of the ingredients needed for prescription meds come from China, which could lead to an unfavorable leverage the country has over the United States.
“When we were critical of their lack of transparency about the origin of COVID-19, I think one of the officials in the Chinese Communist Party said, y’know, you better stop your criticism or you’re going to drown in a sea of COVID-19,” Krishnamoorthi said.
Krishnamoorthi would like to see government incentives for private companies to shore up supply chain lines and be less dependent on China.
Supply chains are part of a larger issue with trade with China, where Krishnamoorthi says there’s delicate balance with trying to have a level playing field.
“You don’t want a situation where economic aggression is practiced against our businesses,” Krishnamoorthi said. “Either stealing intellectual property, or dumping goods below their cost to drive out competitors in the U.S., or cyber hacking or industrial spying.”
Krishnamoorthi says in order to keep things level, government can do yearly assessments to see if China is playing nice on trade and issues such as human rights. He says if China is not playing fair, then countermeasures would need to be taken.
There’s also concerns from Krishnamoorthi regarding information and one of the most popular apps in the world, TikTok. He says the owner of TikTok, Bytedance of China, can make it easy to control what people can and cannot see.
“The CCP knows that, Bytedance knows that, so when they control the algorithms to, let’s say suppress certain content and then highlight others, or to promote other content, they are, in some ways, influencing the American public,” Krishnamoorthi said.
Krishnamoorthi adds that a lot of people get their news from TikTok, saying a third of people under 30 use the app as a news source. He says he’s looking to introduce legislation that would force the sale of TikTok away from Bytedance and CCP influence.
