Over the last several years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has substantially grown both militarily and economically while exhibiting relentless, anti-rules behavior that goes against the values of the United States and our allies. Indeed, China has become a serious, generational threat that both the Biden Administration and Democrat-led Congress must address.
Alarmingly, America’s conventional advantage over China is eroding, which makes it critically important for our government leaders to put forward unified solutions that keep this threat at bay. This starts with President Joe Biden executing his duties as Commander in Chief, including prioritizing and urging passage of increased funding for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Unfortunately, the president’s proposed budget last year revealed significant underfunding for our national defense. While the bipartisan, bicameral National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022 authorizes funding for the resources our military needs, none of the new funding priorities can be realized without passing the related defense appropriations bill.
Instead of working on bipartisan solution to address the ongoing and worsening China threat, Democrats continue to waste time on expensive, out-of-touch policies that would further damage our economy and drive up inflation. Meanwhile, the negotiations and cooperation needed to provide full-year government funding has stalled, causing Democrats in Congress to revert to a series of short-term funding resolutions. Although these continuing resolutions (or CRs) are better than the alternative of a government shutdown, the failure to act on full-year appropriations creates uncertainty.
Because CRs typically fund the government at current levels and don’t account for inflation or new projects, these resolutions are problematic for annual operations as a whole, but especially for national security. Unfunded projects include initiatives that would help with building coalition capacity and missile defense. Indeed, a continuous CR delays DOD’s ability to grow power projection against our adversaries. And should the CR last the entire fiscal year, it would prevent the funding of key systems and initiatives in the Pacific region and at home to contest China’s rapid growth, including naval and missile strike capacity seeking to overtake ours in the region as well as Army movement from mainland China.
Second, the Biden Administration has not sought answers for the CCP’s role in the creation and subsequent worldwide spread of COVID-19, despite mounting evidence that this virus originated in Wuhan labs where dangerous gain-of-function research was occurring. Indeed, it will take years and possibly decades for every country around the globe to clean up the mess caused by CCP’s coronavirus cover-up. If China is to assume its position as a world leader, the CCP must come to the table as a responsible global player that accepts its fair share of the responsibility and plays by the rules of international behavior expected of a great power. President Biden and Democrats must hold China accountable for the actions that led to the deaths of millions around the world.
Finally, although House Democratic leaders recently unveiled legislation said to address the CCP’s unruly behavior, the so-called America COMPETES Act has more to do with climate change and giving more money to China than actually strengthening America’s competitive edge. In fact, the legislation, which mentions coral reefs more times than China, would actually weaken our ability to deal with China. For example, it includes provisions to cover up the Biden Administration’s giveaway of $40 billion in International Monetary Fund (IMF) money to the CCP last spring and to grant the U.S. Treasury unchecked authority to block Americans’ digital currency payments worldwide. Moreover, it would allow the CCP to exploit U.S. immigration law by allowing them to handpick which Chinese nationals can apply for green cards. And it contains no measures to limit the CCP’s ability to undermine our nation’s institutions or steal American intellectual property. Expected on the floor for a vote this week, this legislation shows that House Democrats are more concerned with the optics of addressing a threat than actually dealing with it.
We need a strong, morally grounded policy to stand against Communist China and to keep the country from gaining ground and threatening the American way of life, as well as our safety and security. The United States must lead the way in taking serious steps to contest China’s power growth.