Few political clichés are more frequently invoked than “personnel is policy.” Like most aphorisms, it’s rooted in truth. Ideas aren’t self-executing, and the government is no better than the people who staff it. Washington received the latest reminder of this reality on Wednesday when news broke that the House Foreign Affairs Committee had hired a new staff director for the East Asia and Pacific subcommittee. Committee jobs in Congress are competitive, and it’s common for staffers to rack up private sector experience before stepping into these roles. In this case, however, the industry experience was directly tied to America’s foremost geopolitical adversary.
Before joining the committee, the staffer in question, Mark Aitken II, was senior director of U.S. government relations at DJI and a vice president at Shein. DJI is domiciled in the People’s Republic of China and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. U.S. officials have long warned about the dangers of relying on CCP drones that leave America’s critical infrastructure exposed to espionage. Shein, for its part, is notorious for skirting U.S. import laws. The company seems less concerned about avoiding taxes and more preoccupied with evading accountability for its use of Uyghur slave labor-produced cotton.
