China Select Committee Chair Applauds Advance of Outbound Investment Bill
House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., said Oct. 16 that he welcomes Senate passage of a bill last week to restrict U.S. outbound investment in China.
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“That will be something that needs to be worked out in [a] conference committee [with the House], but I’m really pleased with the progress that’s been made on that,” Moolenaar said at the Hudson Institute.
The legislation, which the Senate included in its version of the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (see 2510100015), will have to be reconciled with the House-passed NDAA, which lacks similar language. But with a stand-alone bill on outbound investment enjoying significant House support, Moolenaar is hopeful Congress ultimately will pass an outbound measure this year after falling short last year (see 2412230038). “I’m confident we’ll get it done,” he said.
Moolenaar said a key challenge in enacting outbound restrictions has been addressing Wall Street's concerns. "They would say, 'We want to be patriotic,' but their day job is to make money for their shareholders," he said. "We need to continue to highlight and make visible the fact that when you are putting American investor dollars [into] entities that partner with the Chinese military or the surveillance state, that is not a patriotic decision, and we need to have clear guardrails on what is acceptable and what isn't."
In other comments, Moolenaar highlighted a proposal he unveiled in August to restrict computing chip exports to China to preserve American dominance in AI. Under his approach, AI chips sold to China would provide only a “marginal” improvement over the most advanced Chinese-made chips (see 2508260041). He believes his "China-plus" strategy for chip sales would be preferable to a less-restrictive "U.S.-minus" approach, which would give China a 50% reduction from the best U.S. chip.
"If we're to implement a system that both keeps China locked on U.S. technology and protects national security, we must limit the uplift we give China's AI sector as much as possible," he said. "The American innovation system has created companies that are generations ahead of their Chinese counterparts in AI hardware. We cannot hand our strategic adversary a shortcut in developing better AI models to extend their repressive reach."
Moolenaar said he awaits a briefing he requested last month from the Trump administration on a new U.S.-China agreement that will transfer ownership of TikTok from China’s ByteDance to American investors (see 2509260037). He said he wants to ensure ByteDance doesn’t retain control of TikTok’s algorithm.