China has banned former U.S. lawmaker Mike Gallagher from entering the country and taken other measures in response to his words and actions that “interfered in China’s internal affairs,” the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
From Tuesday, the ministry said, China will also freeze Gallagher’s assets in the country and ban organisations and individuals there from trading and cooperating with him.
It did not go into further detail on what Gallagher had said or done.
Who is Mike Gallagher?
Mike Gallagher is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Wisconsin’s 8th congressional district for the Republican Party from 2017 to 2024. During his tenure in the 118th United States Congress, Gallagher chaired the House Select Committee on Competition with the Chinese Communist Party.
His decisive vote against the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in February 2024 garnered both support and criticism. Gallagher later announced his resignation, effective April 20, 2024, to pursue other opportunities, including a role with Palantir, a military technology company.
Before entering politics, he served as a military intelligence officer and worked on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Gallagher is married to Broadway actress Anne Horak Gallagher.
Why was Mike Gallagher Sanctioned?
In April, Congressman Mike Gallagher wrote in Foreign Affairs that the Chinese Communist Party has no desire to coexist indefinitely with great powers that promote liberal values and thus represent a fundamental threat to its rule.”
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He argued that China’s support underpins Iran’s quest to destroy Israel, Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, Venezuela’s menacing actions against its neighbors, and North Korea’s nuclear sabre-rattling, all part of the CCP’s plan to disintegrate the West and establish a new, anti-democratic order with Beijing at its centre.
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Gallagher, a Republican, has been a fierce critic of China and a strong supporter of Taiwan, a democratically governed island that Beijing claims as its own. In February, Gallagher visited Taiwan and met with both then-President Tsai Ing-wen and current President Lai Ching-te. He told Tsai the trip was to show bipartisan support for the island and called her “a leader within the free world.”
