CHINA has blasted a new US house committee dedicated to countering Beijing, demanding its members “discard their ideological bias and zero-sum cold war mentality.”

The House select committee on the Chinese Communist Party must “view China and China-US relations in an objective and rational light,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Wednesday.

She said that the US must “stop framing China as a threat by quoting disinformation, stop denigrating the Communist Party of China and stop trying to score political points at the expense of China-US relations.”

The committee began on Tuesday with a prime-time hearing in which its chairman called on lawmakers to act with urgency, framing the competition between the US and China as “an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century.”

Relations between the US and China are at their worst in years, with a US trade war seeking to block Chinese access to semiconductors and high-tech manufacturing components to derail its economy.

The US has sought to inflame tensions over Taiwan, which Washington and Beijing formally recognise as Chinese territory, and accused Beijing of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other territories.

The hysteria created by a wayward Chinese weather balloon, which the US claimed was being used for spying and shot down, has further fuelled tensions between the two nations.

This follows a number of high-level visits to Taiwan by US figures including last August by then-speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

The select committee’s chairman, Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin who has been a fierce critic of Beijing, said: “Time is not on our side. Just because this Congress is divided, we cannot afford to waste the next two years lingering in legislative limbo or pandering for the press.” 

Mr Gallagher said that he is committed to ensuring the focus is on the Chinese Communist Party, not on the people of China.

But critics of the new committee claim that its hearings could spark more anti-Asian hate crimes across the country.

Tuesday’s hearing was interrupted by two protesters from campaign group Codepink. 

Olivia DiNucci, a Codepink organiser, held a banner saying “China is not our enemy.” 

After both were dragged out of the hearing one of the other protesters, who goes by the name Hector M, said “this committee is about sabre rattling, it’s not about peace.”