Mike Gallagher, the former congressman and former chair of the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, is being punished. The Taipei Times has taken notice in a way that Gallagher’s nemesis may not entirely appreciate (“The CCP’s ineffectual sanctions on ex-legislator,” June 2, 2024).
Although Gallagher (shown above) left Congress in April 2024 and is no longer indefatigably heading up investigations into CCP crimes and American and other witting or unwitting collaboration, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs “has continued to punish Gallagher” for “intervening in China’s affairs.” It seems that the Chinese Communist Party never forgets, not even weeks later.
China’s penalties for Gallagher include:
● Denying Gallagher entry into China. Gallagher has no plans to try to visit China.
● Freezing Gallagher’s access to all property Gallagher owns in China. Gallagher owns no property in China.
● Prohibiting any Chinese individual or organization from transacting with or working with Gallagher.
The Taipei Times reporter, Chen Yung-chang, tries to relate the CCP’s feckless efforts to punish Gallagher to its perhaps less feckless efforts to exclude Microsoft Windows from the computers of the Chinese government. After leaving Congress, Gallagher joined Titletown Tech, a venture capital firm that is a partnership between the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft.
China was reportedly seeking in March to “block Intel, AMD and Microsoft tech from being used in government computers”—after having announced this intention in December 2023.
But the policy doesn’t seem to have anything directly to do with trying to make Gallagher feel the pain. The new rules, says Financial Times, “represent China’s most significant step yet to build up domestic substitutes for foreign technology and echo moves in the US as tensions increase between the two countries.”
