Sec. 3002. Findings
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Congress makes the following findings: The People’s Republic of China
(PRC)is leveraging its political, diplomatic, economic, military, technological, and ideological power to become a strategic, near-peer, global competitor of the United States. The policies increasingly pursued by the PRC in these domains are contrary to the interests and values of the United States, its partners, and much of the rest of the world. The current policies being pursued by the PRC— threaten the future character of the international order and are shaping the rules, norms, and institutions that govern relations among states; will put at risk the ability of the United States to secure its national interests; and will put at risk the future peace, prosperity, and freedom of the international community in the coming decades. After normalizing diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1979, the United States actively worked to advance the PRC’s economic and social development to ensure that the PRC participated in, and benefitted from, the free and open international order. The United States pursued these goals and contributed to the welfare of the Chinese people by— increasing the PRC’s trade relations and access to global capital markets; promoting the PRC’s accession to the World Trade Organization; providing development finance and technical assistance; promoting research collaboration; educating the PRC’s top students; permitting transfers of cutting-edge technologies and scientific knowledge; and providing intelligence and military assistance. It is now clear that the PRC has chosen to pursue state-led, mercantilist economic policies, an increasingly authoritarian governance model at home through increased restrictions on personal freedoms, and an aggressive and assertive foreign policy. These policies frequently and deliberately undermine United States interests and are contrary to core United States values and the values of other nations, both in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. In response to this strategic decision of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the United States has been compelled to reexamine and revise its strategy towards the PRC. The General Secretary of the CCP and the President of the PRC, Xi Jinping, has elevated the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation as central to the domestic and foreign policy of the PRC. His program demands— strong, centralized CCP leadership; concentration of military power; a strong role for the CCP in the state and the economy; an aggressive foreign policy seeking control over broadly asserted territorial claims; and the denial of any values and individual rights that are deemed to threaten the CCP. The PRC views its Leninist model of governance, socialism with Chinese characteristics , as superior to, and at odds with, the constitutional models of the United States and other democracies. This approach to governance is lauded by the CCP as essential to securing the PRC’s status as a global leader, and to shaping the future of the world. In a 2013 speech, President Xi said, We firmly believe that as socialism with Chinese characteristics develops further … it is … inevitable that the superiority of our socialist system will be increasingly apparent … [and] our country’s road of development will have increasingly greater influence on the world. . The PRC’s objectives are to first establish regional hegemony over the Indo-Pacific and then to use that dominant position to propel the PRC to become the leading world power, shaping an international order that is conducive to the CCP’s interests. Achieving these objectives require turning the PRC into a wealthy nation under strict CCP rule and using a strong military and advanced technological capability to pursue the PRC’s objectives, regardless of other countries’ interests. The PRC is reshaping the current international order, which is built upon the rule of law and free and open ideals and principles, by conducting global information and influence operations, seeking to redefine international laws and norms to align with the objectives of the CCP, rejecting the legitimacy of internationally recognized human rights, and seeking to co-opt the leadership and agenda of multinational organizations for the benefit of the PRC and other authoritarian regimes at the expense of the interests of the United States and the international community. In December 2018, President Xi suggested that the CCP views its historic mission as not only to govern China, but also to profoundly influence global governance to benefit the CCP. The PRC is encouraging other countries to follow its model of socialism with Chinese characteristics . During the 19th Party Congress in 2017, President Xi said that the PRC could serve as a model of development for other countries by utilizing Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving problems . The PRC is promoting its governance model and attempting to weaken other models of governance by— undermining democratic institutions; subverting financial institutions; coercing businesses to accommodate the policies of the PRC; and using disinformation to disguise the nature of the actions described in subparagraphs
(A)through (C). The PRC is close to its goal of becoming the global leader in science and technology. In May 2018, President Xi said that for the PRC to reach prosperity and rejuvenation , it needs to endeavor to be a major world center for science and innovation . The PRC has invested the equivalent of billions of dollars into education and research and development, and has established joint scientific research centers and science universities. The PRC’s drive to become a manufacturing and technological superpower and to promote innovation with Chinese characteristics is coming at the expense of human rights and longstanding international rules and norms with respect to economic competition, and presents a challenge to United States national security and the security of allies and like-minded countries. In particular, the PRC advances its illiberal political and social policies through mass surveillance, social credit systems, and a significant role of the state in internet governance. Through these means, the PRC increases direct and indirect government control over its citizens’ everyday lives. Its national strategy of Military-Civil Fusion mandates that civil and commercial research, which increasingly drives global innovation, is leveraged to develop new military capabilities. The PRC and the CCP are committing crimes against humanity and are engaged in an ongoing genocide, in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, done at Paris December 9, 1948, against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, including through campaigns of imprisonment, torture, rape, and coercive birth prevention policies. The PRC is using legal and illegal means to achieve its objective of becoming a manufacturing and technological superpower. The PRC uses state-directed industrial policies in anticompetitive ways to ensure the dominance of PRC companies. The CCP engages in and encourages actions that actively undermine a free and open international market, such as intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, regulatory and financial subsidies, and mandatory CCP access to proprietary data as part of business and commercial agreements between Chinese and foreign companies. The policies referred to in paragraph
(14)are designed to freeze United States and other foreign firms out of the PRC market, while eroding competition in other important markets. The heavy subsidization of Chinese companies includes potential violation of its World Trade Organization commitments. In May 2018, President Xi said that the PRC aims to keep the initiatives of innovation and development security … in [China's] own hands . The PRC is advancing its global objectives through a variety of avenues, including its signature initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is enshrined in the Chinese Constitution and includes the Digital Silk Road and Health Silk Road. The PRC describes BRI as a straightforward and wholly beneficial plan for all countries. However, it eventually seeks to advance an economic system with the PRC at its center, making it the most concrete geographical representation of the PRC’s global ambitions. BRI increases the economic influence of state-owned Chinese firms in global markets, enhances the PRC’s political leverage with government leaders around the world, and provides greater access to strategic nodes such as ports and railways. Through BRI, the PRC seeks political deference through economic dependence. The PRC is executing a plan to establish regional hegemony over the Indo-Pacific and displace the United States from the region. As a Pacific power, the United States has built and supported enduring alliances and economic partnerships that secure peace and prosperity and promote the rule of law and political pluralism in a free and open Indo-Pacific. In contrast, the PRC uses economic and military coercion in the region to secure its own interests. The PRC’s military strategy seeks to keep the United States military from operating in the Western Pacific and to erode United States security guarantees. The PRC is aggressively pursuing exclusive control of critical land routes, sea lanes, and air space in the Indo-Pacific in the hopes of eventually exercising greater influence beyond the region. This includes lanes crucial to commercial activity, energy exploration, transport, and the exercise of security operations in areas permitted under international law. The PRC seeks so-called reunification with Taiwan through whatever means may ultimately be required. The CCP’s insistence that so-called reunification is Taiwan’s only option makes this goal inherently coercive. In January 2019, President Xi stated that the PRC make[s] no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve[s] the option of taking all necessary means . Taiwan’s embodiment of democratic values and economic liberalism challenges President Xi’s goal of achieving national rejuvenation. The PRC plans to exploit Taiwan’s dominant strategic position in the First Island Chain and to project power into the Second Island Chain and beyond. In the South China Sea, the PRC has executed an illegal island-building campaign that threatens freedom of navigation and the free-flow of commerce, damages the environment, bolsters PLA power projection capabilities, and coerces and intimidates other regional claimants in an effort to advance its unlawful claims and control the waters around neighboring countries. Despite President Xi’s September 2015 speech, in which he said the PRC did not intend to militarize the South China Sea, during the 2017 19th Party Congress, President Xi announced that construction on islands and reefs in the South China Sea have seen steady progress . The PRC is rapidly modernizing the PLA to attain a level of capacity and capability superior to the United States in terms of equipment and conduct of modern military operations by shifting its military doctrine from having a force adequate [for] China’s defensive needs to having a force commensurate with China’s international status . Ultimately, this transformation could enable China to impose its will in the Indo-Pacific region through the threat of military force. In 2017, President Xi established the following developmental benchmarks for the advancement of the PLA: A mechanized force with increased informatized and strategic capabilities by 2020. The complete modernization of China’s national defense by 2035. The full transformation of the PLA into a world-class force by 2050. The PRC’s strategy and supporting policies described in this section undermine United States interests, such as— upholding a free and open international order; maintaining the integrity of international institutions with liberal norms and values; preserving a favorable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific; ensuring the defense of its allies; preserving open sea and air lanes; fostering the free flow of commerce through open and transparent markets; and promoting individual freedom and human rights. The global COVID–19 pandemic has intensified and accelerated these trends in the PRC’s behavior and therefore increased the need for United States global leadership and a competitive posture. The PRC has capitalized on the world’s focus on the COVID–19 pandemic by— moving rapidly to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, including imposing a so-called national security law on Hong Kong; aggressively imposing its will in the East and South China Seas; contributing to increased tensions with India; and engaging in a widespread and government-directed disinformation campaign to obscure the PRC government’s efforts to cover up the seriousness of COVID–19, sow confusion about the origination of the outbreak, and discredit the United States, its allies, and global health efforts. The CCP’s disinformation campaign referred to in paragraph (24)(D) has included— concerted efforts, in the early days of the pandemic, to downplay the nature and scope of the outbreak in Wuhan in the PRC, as well as cases of person-to-person transmission; claims that the virus originated in United States biological defense research at Fort Detrick, Maryland; Chinese state media reports insinuating a possible link between the virus and other United States biological facilities; and efforts to block access to qualified international infectious disease experts who might contradict the CCP’s narrative. In response to the PRC’s strategy and policies, the United States must adopt a policy of strategic competition with the PRC to protect and promote our vital interests and values. The United States’ policy of strategic competition with respect to the PRC is part of a broader strategic approach to the Indo-Pacific and the world which centers around cooperation with United States allies and partners to advance shared values and interests and to preserve and enhance a free, open, democratic, inclusive, rules-based, stable, and diverse region. The Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 ( Public Law 115–409 ) contributed to a comprehensive framework for promoting United State security interests, economic interests, and values in the Indo-Pacific region, investing $7,500,000,000 over 5 years— to support greater security and defense cooperation between the United States and allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region; to advance democracy and the protection and promotion of human rights in the Indo-Pacific region; to enhance cybersecurity cooperation between the United States and partners in the Indo-Pacific; to deepen people-to-people engagement through programs such as the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative and the ASEAN Youth Volunteers program; and to enhance energy cooperation and energy security in the Indo-Pacific region.
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