Dem Rep. Auchincloss: ‘We Want to Import Chinese Inputs, Especially in our Clean Energy Supply Chains’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) said that “We want to import Chinese inputs, especially in our clean energy supply chains, where we know that they have critical inputs for us.”

Auchincloss stated, “It’s a nation of 1.4 billion people. It would be simplistic and obtuse to say that they are all or one thing or all the other. We want access to their markets. We want to import Chinese inputs, especially in our clean energy supply chains, where we know that they have critical inputs for us. We welcome Chinese economic development. It’s good for the global economy. Having said that, we are also going to fiercely compete. We’re going to compete on ideology. We do not accept their state-dominated, authoritarian view of how civil society should operate. We do not accept their extractive approach to building alliances, particularly in the global south. We want to be partners, not extractors of other countries’ wealth and productivity, and we do not accept their behavior in the Indo-Pacific or with Russia. We are going to remain the hegemon in the Indo-Pacific. We’re going to uphold the liberal, post-war, rules-based order, and we’re not going to allow the Chinese Communist Party to set a standard of might makes right.”

Auchincloss also said he wants to outcompete China economically.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett