Recognizing the People's Republic of China as the greatest foreign threat to United States peace, security, and stability.

IV 116TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. CON. RES. 121 Recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the greatest foreign threat to United States peace, security, and stability. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OCTOBER 20, 2020 Mr. BIGGS submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs CONCURRENT RESOLUTION Recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the greatest foreign threat to United States peace, security, and stability. Whereas the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a popu- lation of approximately 1,400,000,000, compared to the United States population of approximately 330,000,000; Whereas the PRC’s economy is the second largest in the world, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), be- hind only the United States; Whereas the PRC’s GDP will likely surpass United States GDP in the coming decades; Whereas the PRC has the largest active duty military in the world; Whereas the PRC has committed to aggressively modernizing its military capabilities in the coming decades; VerDate Sep 11 2014 20:50 Oct 20, 2020 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HC121.IH HC121 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 2 •HCON 121 IH Whereas the PRC possesses nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles; Whereas the PRC does not share the democratic or free mar- ket values of the United States; Whereas Xi Jinping has been the de facto paramount leader of the PRC since November 2012, when he attained the positions of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission; Whereas Xi became the head of state of the PRC in March 2013, with a title usually labeled ‘‘President’’ in Western sources; Whereas President Xi has decisively broken with the foreign policy restraint practiced by his immediate predecessors; Whereas President Xi declared in a 2018 speech before the National People’s Congress that the PRC ‘‘must ride on the mighty east wind of the new era, charge forward with a full tank and steadily steer the wheel with full power’’; Whereas the PRC has neoimperial ambitions to spread its power throughout the world; Whereas the PRC launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, to offer financing for transportation and energy infrastructure projects in dozens of countries; Whereas many of the BRI-participating countries are poor, unstable, or potentially vulnerable to debt dependence on Beijing; Whereas the United States has very sensitive strategic rela- tionships with many BRI-participating countries, includ- ing Afghanistan and Pakistan; Whereas the PRC has released few details about the BRI, de- spite widespread calls from the United States, the Inter- VerDate Sep 11 2014 20:50 Oct 20, 2020 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HC121.IH HC121 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 3 •HCON 121 IH national Monetary Fund, and other governments and multinational organizations for greater transparency; Whereas while the PRC has been opaque about the BRI, it has been very clear about its ambitions in the South China Sea in recent years; Whereas the PRC claims ‘‘indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and their adjacent waters’’; Whereas this assertion of sovereignty is not, in fact, ‘‘indis- putable’’ to the other countries in the region; Whereas Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines, a United States treaty ally, all dispute the PRC’s expansive South China Sea claims; Whereas the PRC continues to construct militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea to bolster its position; Whereas trillions of dollars of ship-borne commerce pass through the South China Sea each year, including to United States markets; Whereas the PRC continues to aggressively claim sovereignty over Taiwan; Whereas, on September 30, 2020, the PRC’s Premier, Li Keqiang, proclaimed that ‘‘we will . . . resolutely oppose and curb any ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist behaviors and external interference, . . . and promote . . . the re- unification of the motherland’’; Whereas Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over Taiwan are belied by the fact that the Taiwanese people have inde- pendently governed their island for over 70 years; Whereas Taiwan is a vitally important friend and regional se- curity partner of the United States; VerDate Sep 11 2014 20:50 Oct 20, 2020 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HC121.IH HC121 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 4 •HCON 121 IH Whereas the Taiwan-United States bond has been solidified by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Taiwan Travel Act, and the ‘‘Six Assurances’’ first promulgated by the Reagan administration in 1982; Whereas the PRC continues to curtail the rights of the resi- dents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Whereas, on June 30, 2020, the PRC’s National People’s Congress passed an expansive national security law to broadly criminalize democratic participation and protest in Hong Kong; Whereas this law and other efforts to curtail democratic par- ticipation in Hong Kong violates the PRC’s commitments in 1984 and 1997 to the United Kingdom to respect Hong Kong’s long tradition of economic and democratic freedoms for 50 years, beginning on July 1, 1997; Whereas the Beijing government’s increasingly hostile actions threaten the 85,000 American residents and 1,300 United States firms operating in Hong Kong; Whereas, in addition to the above and other geostrategic threats, the PRC wields enormous influence over the United States economy; Whereas the PRC holds over $1,000,000,000,000 in United States Treasury bonds, more than any other foreign na- tion except Japan; Whereas in recent years the PRC has maintained a massive trade surplus over the United States, valued at $345,600,000,000 in 2019, by manipulating its currency and maintaining unreasonably high tariffs, among other tactics; VerDate Sep 11 2014 20:50 Oct 20, 2020 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HC121.IH HC121 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 5 •HCON 121 IH Whereas the PRC routinely pressures United States compa- nies entering its market to cede their intellectual property and market licensing rights; Whereas the PRC frequently carries out cyberattacks on United States companies to steal trade secrets or other sensitive information it cannot obtain by other means; Whereas cyberattacks originating from the PRC target not only companies, but also United States Government and United States defense interests, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and average citizens; and Whereas it is likely that the PRC has access to the personal data of most citizens of the United States: Now, there- fore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 1 concurring), That Congress— 2 (1) recognizes that the People’s Republic of 3 China (PRC) currently poses the greatest foreign 4 threat to United States peace, security, and stability; 5 (2) recognizes that the PRC, regardless of fu- 6 ture leadership, will likely continue to be a major 7 rival of the United States in the coming decades, 8 due to the enormous cumulative size and scale of its 9 population, economy, and military capabilities; and 10 (3) supports the Trump administration’s overall 11 strategic approach to the PRC, grounded in prin- 12 cipled realism and firm-but-measured competitive 13 engagement whenever United States national inter- 14 VerDate Sep 11 2014 20:50 Oct 20, 2020 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HC121.IH HC121 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 6 •HCON 121 IH ests are at stake, that has been outlined in sources 1 including but not limited to— 2 (A) the United States Strategic Approach 3 to the People’s Republic of China (May 2020); 4 (B) the National Defense Strategy of the 5 United States of America (October 2018); 6 (C) the National Cyber Strategy of the 7 United States of America (September 2018); 8 and 9 (D) the National Security Strategy of the 10 United States of America (December 2017). 11 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 20:50 Oct 20, 2020 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\HC121.IH HC121 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS