The "Select Committee on China" (commonly abbreviated SCCP) is a bipartisan select committee of the US House of Representatives, established at the start of the 118th Congress in January 2023 by a 365–65 vote. Its mandate is to investigate and report on the economic, technological, and security competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and to recommend legislation. The committee is investigative and advisory rather than a standing legislative committee, and it has become a frequent congressional venue for AI and semiconductor policy.
Leadership
The committee was founded under chair Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who led it from 2023 to mid-2024 and set its early agenda on technology decoupling and outbound-investment screening before retiring from Congress mid-term in 2024 (Mike Gallagher). John Moolenaar (R-MI) has chaired the committee since January 2024 (John Moolenaar). Under Moolenaar the committee has pressed for tighter and more expansive chip controls, including extending controls to high-bandwidth and other memory chips and to advanced chip-manufacturing equipment, arguing that existing statutes do not go far enough (Source: sdxcentral.com). The ranking member is the senior Democrat on the committee, which has maintained sustained bipartisan cooperation on China-technology questions.
Activities
Chip-export controls
The committee has been a leading congressional advocate for hard limits on advanced-AI-chip exports to China and a persistent critic of moves to loosen them. When the Trump administration moved in early 2026 to approve sales of some more-powerful Nvidia chips to China, committee members publicly objected, framing the relaxation as a national-security risk (Source: cnbc.com). The committee's preferred policy framing runs through the capability-relative export-control test of the SCALE Act (SCALE Act — Rep. John Moolenaar (April 2026)), and it engages the broader debate over the BIS Framework for AI Diffusion — Interim Final Rule (RESCINDED) and Export Controls (AI).
Expert testimony
The committee solicits testimony framing the US–China AI competition. Brookings's Kyle Chan testified on competing US and Chinese AI strategies in 2026 (Source: brookings.edu).
Chinese-model adoption probe
Together with the House Committee on Homeland Security, the committee opened a joint investigation in April 2026 into U.S. companies' adoption of Chinese AI models. The panels sent letters to Cursor and Airbnb; on July 8, 2026, Homeland Security chairman Andrew Garbarino warned that a Chinese open-weight model matching U.S. models on vulnerability discovery is "highly alarming," and a committee aide said the panels are examining whether the U.S. has a sufficient open-weight AI strategy (Source: cnbc.com). See Open-Source AI / Open-Weight Models, Zhipu AI.
Decoupling and supply chains
Beyond chips, the committee has driven investigations into Chinese AI-model registration (China Generative AI Registration (da moxing bei'an / 大模型备案)), critical-minerals supply chains (Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework), and outbound-investment screening. Its work is tied to the national-security framing on AI and National Security.
Positions and contestation
The committee has established AI-and-semiconductor competition as a standing, bipartisan congressional priority, providing export-control advocates a venue independent of which party holds the White House. Its recommendations are contested. Critics, including parts of the AI industry and some economists, argue that ever-tighter controls accelerate Chinese domestic chip development (the Huawei — Ascend AI Accelerators / SMIC trajectory), shifting rather than preserving the technological frontier; the committee counters that delay and cost imposition are themselves valuable. Both positions are documented under Export Controls (AI).
Relationships
- related: John Moolenaar
- related: Mike Gallagher
- related: SCALE Act — Rep. John Moolenaar (April 2026)
- related: Export Controls (AI)
- related: AI and National Security
- related: China Generative AI Registration (da moxing bei'an / 大模型备案)