China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday unloaded a pair of hit pieces on the new Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

The Chinese propagandists were incensed that McCarthy’s caucus dared to establish a select committee to investigate the “multifaceted threats” from China.

“Chinese experts said on Wednesday that the new panel, which is called House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Communist Party of China, has a strong ideological overtone, and China should be wary of the more aggressive adventurism and destructive behavior of American politicians,” the Global Times railed.

The Global Times suggested President Joe Biden could curry some favor with Beijing by “managing [the] Republican-created crisis” and resisting any urge to “race in[to] the anti-China competition with the extreme Republicans.”

For all of its crude efforts to paint the select committee as a partisan Republican gambit to exploit Sinophobia for partisan gain, the Global Times was forced to admit the vote in favor of creating the committee was a lopsided 365-65, with most Democrats voting yes. The committee will include nine Republicans and seven Democrats.

“Chinese experts said the committee may be endowed with the ability to raise the voice of anti-China public opinion, and may even send its members to visit Taiwan for provocation, and conspire with forces secretly engaged in subverting the Chinese government to undermine the Chinese political system,” the Global Times hyperventilated.

To their credit, the Chinese propagandists made it roughly halfway through the first article before they began harping on the similarities between Speaker McCarthy’s last name and that of Senator Joe McCarthy. 

The second overheated Global Times piece on the House China committee on Thursday led with that, right in the headline: “The Fire McCarthy Set Is Like McCarthyism Reincarnated.” This was accompanied by a crude cartoon of Kevin McCarthy thumbing through a book titled “MCCARTHYISM, by Joe McCarthy,” in case any of the slower readers in the Global Times’ audience missed the point.

This second screed accused McCarthy of taking out his frustrations on poor, innocent China after experiencing “the humiliation and setback of a ‘once-in-a-century’ multiple rounds of elections for the House speakership.”

“The evil fire he ignited is likely to flourish, but the intent of putting up a stunt is evident,” the editors sputtered.

The Global Times fretted that the new House committee will “magnify small matters and seek every opportunity to create noise in China-U.S. relations” to draw attention to itself – and that would make Kevin McCarthy just like old Tailgunner Joe:

Just look at McCarthy’s remarks at the House: “One of my greatest worries about the future is that we fall behind Communist China.” “The danger posed by our dependence on China is dire.” “China has exported oppression, aggression, and anti-Americanism.” Is there a sense of space-time confusion? 

If we change just a few words, this lurid speech could serve as a political speech for the late “McCarthy,” the more infamous Joseph McCarthy. About 70 years ago, in early 1953, he became chairman of the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate Government Operations Committee. He ascended to the pinnacle of power and also pushed the Red Scare of “McCarthyism” to the extreme. But after a few years, he died amid the scolding from the public, losing all standing and reputation.

The name “McCarthy” represents a segment of Washington’s ugly history, a sinister wind of the Cold War, and a product of occasional outbreaks of the malady of the American system. Across 70 years, the US has gone from one “McCarthy” to another. 

All of this bloviating suggests the Global Times editors do not know much about Joe McCarthy except that he did not like communists and he was a bad man. He fits neatly into the Chinese Communist Party’s endlessly repeated talking point that all suspicion of Beijing’s behavior and agenda emanates from sinister Americans eager to launch a “new Cold War.”

“The U.S. public opinion rarely links the two ‘McCarthys.’ Is this deliberate evasion, or indifference and amnesia of history?” the Global Times wondered, ignoring the third possibility that it is too dumb of a talking point for even the current state of American political discourse.

The Global Times was too enraptured by the McCarthy name coincidence to spend much time on the actual chairman of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), aside from briefly dismissing him as “well-known for his anti-China stance.”

China will surely get around to unloading on Gallagher because he is the real threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s interests. He said on Tuesday he was “very excited” to see the vote in favor of establishing his committee was “overwhelmingly bipartisan.”

“I do think, to the extent possible, if Congress can speak with a unified voice on this issue and if, to the extent possible, politics can stop at the water’s edge, our foreign policy is stronger for it,” Gallagher said.

“There were brutal, meaningful differences and disagreements between the parties and within the parties in the first decade of the old Cold War – but by and large, we were able to build out a foundation for containment that served us well over the course of the next four decades,” Gallagher said last week, dropping the kind of sound bite that could give Chinese Communist editorialists a stroke.

The Global Times might be focused on McCarthy at the moment because it wants to signal House Democrats they can expect plenty of support from Beijing if they turn Gallagher’s committee into a partisan circus. Some of them are chomping at the bit to do exactly that, as could be seen from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s coverage of the vote to establish the House Select committee:

Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore were among the Democrats who opposed the measure. Both members indicated to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel they were concerned the committee would be used for partisan politics, and Pocan in a statement accused the committee of being set up “to score political points.”

[…]

Earlier in the day, a number of Democrats raised concerns about whether the committee would foment anti-Asian hate while others questioned why the select committee was necessary when there are established committees that deal with China-related issues.

“This committee cannot be used to promote policies that result in the racial profiling of Asian Americans but should directly focus on specific concerns related to the government of the People’s Republic of China,” Judy Chou, a California Democrat and chair of the Asian Pacific American Caucus, said on the House floor.

Expect future Chinese editorials to combine Cold War and Joe McCarthy obsessions with plenty of contemporary cant about “racism” if the House committee conducts any serious investigations that lead to legislation or administrative action. Gallagher signaled last week that TikTok, the deeply compromised Chinese-owned social media platform, could be the first such investigation.

“I still think I can convince most Democrats that I’m right on TikTok and that we should ban TikTok,” Gallagher said.