Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former CIA Director Leon Panetta are scheduled to appear at a House hearing on China's support for U.S. adversaries next week, as first reported by Semafor.
Titled "Authoritarian Alignment: The CCP's Support for America's Adversaries," the hearing will focus on China's ongoing support for American foes such as Russia and Iran. In recent years China has helped facilitate American tensions overseas by supplying Russian with lethal aide and offering support to Iran amid western sanctions of its nuclear program.
The House select committee is led by Chair Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill.
Panetta is seen as the less hawkish of the two officials, as he stated in a Canadian TV interview last year saying, "I suspect that Xi is himself looking for an opportunity to try to open a line of communication," Panetta said. "So, I hope that President [Joe] Biden can soon make a phone call with President Xi [Jinping], and that ultimately Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken can again schedule a visit to Beijing."
"That would, I think, be encouraging to the world if we could get back to a more normal relationship rather than a relationship of tension and conflict," he also said.
On the subject of Ukraine, in 2022 Panetta claimed American lives would be at stake if conflict broke out in Ukraine, saying "I think the president is, I'm sure, thinking of them in a support capacity. But let's face it, right now there are military advisers, U.S. military advisers in the Ukraine working with the Ukrainians to try to develop their capabilities. And so, if something happens, there's no question that U.S. lives are also going to be at stake here."
Pompeo, a former CIA director himself, served under President Donald Trump and has a history of challenging China's role in the world, as he stated at a Nixon Library speech in June of 2020, "We're seeing staggering statistics of Chinese trade abuses that cost American jobs and strike enormous blows to the economies all across America, including here in southern California. And we're watching a Chinese military that grows stronger and stronger, and indeed more menacing."
Pompeo cautioned that the U.S. could not take a 'one size fits all' approaching when confronting China, "Now, this isn't about containment. Don't buy that. It's about a complex new challenge that we've never faced before. The USSR was closed off from the free world. Communist China is already within our borders."
Pompeo had briefly contemplated running for president in 2024, but last April decided "This isn't our moment."