{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://emmer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/icymi-emmer-and-hill-author-op-ed-on-china", "ICYMI: Emmer and Hill Author Op-Ed on China", "2021-09-27", "2021", "2021-09", "Republican", "House", "MN", "Tom Emmer", "E000294", "emmer.house.gov", "emmer", "https://emmer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. - Representative Tom Emmer (MN-06) authored an opinion piece with his colleague Representative French Hill (AR-02) titled \u201cDon\u2019t Let China Rewrite the Rules for the Global Economy.\u201d The piece was featured in House Financial Services Committee Republican Leader Patrick McHenry\u2019s published editorial in Morning Consult. Read Congressman McHenry\u2019s piece in Morning Consult here.\n\nRead Congressman Emmer & Congressman Hill\u2019s piece below, or by clicking here.\n\n\u201cThe World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) ineptitude in the early days of COVID-19 shed light on China\u2019s growing influence over international institutions. The decline of the WHO should serve as a warning as China seeks to expand its malign reach, particularly in economic governance at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the G20.\n\nThese are the organizations that shape the world\u2019s financial architecture, providing countries with lifelines during crises, setting conditions when they borrow, and monitoring the overall health of the global economy. China feels entitled to a greater say in how these organizations work. The U.S. must make it clear that they haven\u2019t earned it.\n\nChina is now the largest official creditor in the world, with its lending having increased from almost nothing in 1998 to an estimated $1.6 trillion in 2018. Chinese leaders have placed particular emphasis on financing infrastructure across the globe under their Belt and Road Initiative, which now encompasses around 3,000 projects with a value of nearly $4 trillion.\n\nBecause Beijing doesn\u2019t comply with international standards for lending terms that the U.S. and other major creditors have agreed to, the details of much of this financing remain murky. This intentional deception poses massive challenges to the work of the IMF and multilateral development banks, where America and its allies have traditionally been the top shareholders.\n\nWithout an understanding of countries\u2019 obligations to China, public and private creditors can\u2019t structure their loans effectively, allowing risk to form and metastasize unseen. At the same time, if creditors aren\u2019t aware of Beijing\u2019s own potential liabilities when China\u2019s borrowers\u2019 default, they may be blind to weaknesses in the world\u2019s second largest economy.\n\nThe U.S. once believed that encouragement by the U.S. and her allies of the Chinese government would convince it to see the error of its ways. Officials thought if China had arrived as an economic power, then boosting its weight in international bodies must follow, and it just might convince Beijing to behave more responsibly. In 2010, the Obama Administration signed off on a more than 50 percent increase to China\u2019s shareholding at the IMF, a move that the Fund hailed as better reflecting \u201cglobal realities.\u201d Five years later, the U.S. also allowed China\u2019s renminbi (RMB) to be added to the IMF\u2019s basket of elite currencies. This action handed Beijing a propaganda win even though the RMB still lagged the Canadian dollar and Australian dollar as an international reserve currency.\n\nWhatever good intentions may have led to this three-decades-long strategy, the following years have been one long reality check. In addition to the expansion of Belt and Road, China reapplied capital controls and dismissed the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development\u2019s (OECD) trade finance standards to subsidize its exporters.\n\nMost egregiously, the Chinese Communist Party defied international norms of behavior by assaulting Hong Kong\u2019s democracy, stonewalling inquiries into the origins of COVID-19, and carrying out genocide in Xinjiang.\n\nIt\u2019s masochistic to believe that a genocidal and expansionary Chinese Communist Party that rejects global rules is qualified to hold greater sway over international financial institutions. Having a voice in these institutions isn\u2019t about the size of a country\u2019s economy, it\u2019s about commitment to the values that serve as the foundation of multilateral cooperation.\n\nFor its part, the IMF is now considering additional changes to its shareholding, with a decision expected in 2023. China will argue that its voting weight should rise again, this time leapfrogging Japan to take second place behind the U.S. Not only should the U.S. veto this move, but it should also make any future increase for China at the IMF, the World Bank, and other lenders contingent on Beijing first adhering to multilateral credit standards.\n\nThere are reasons to be hopeful that the world may have had enough of China\u2019s behavior. In 2018, the U.S. led reforms at the World Bank that would reduce its assistance to China, an economy that now far exceeds the Bank\u2019s eligibility threshold. Last November, the Treasury Department and like-minded members of an international working group suspended negotiations on export credits, fed up after eight years of Beijing dragging its feet on issues like debt transparency. And despite China\u2019s creation of rivals to the IMF and World Bank, they haven\u2019t come close to displacing these U.S.-led institutions. A Chinese-led order will face hurdles as long as global public opinion of Beijing stays at or near historic lows.\n\nKeeping the pressure on China will be vital until it starts playing by the rules. The tarnished reputation of the WHO serves as a warning to guard against China\u2019s reverse Midas touch wherever possible. There will be times when cooperation with China is necessary, but that cooperation is only sustainable if it\u2019s based on shared values. It is up to China to prove it takes them seriously.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:17:01Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://emmer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/icymi-emmer-and-hill-author-op-ed-on-china"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5295231714844704, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}