A failure to fully fund the government for next year would benefit China by hobbling the US’s ability to compete with its chief adversary, three senior Biden administration officials told a Senate panel.
(Bloomberg) — A failure to fully fund the government for next year would benefit China by hobbling the US’s ability to compete with its chief adversary, three senior Biden administration officials told a Senate panel.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told the Appropriations Committee Tuesday that each of their departments would be less able to counter Chinese influence and malign activity absent sufficient funding. They offered warnings that were echoed by members of the committee, who hold the power to write annual spending bills.
Austin said a stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 would freeze Pentagon spending at previous-year levels and prevent it from starting new programs or increasing the rate of production for weapons or vehicles.
“We won’t be able to award the contract for the second Columbia-class submarine,” Austin said. “We won’t be able to start the production on the Virginia-class submarines. It will delay our ability to get the critical munitions that we need for ourselves and also to support our allies and partners.”
Austin also confirmed that the Defense Department was crafting a security assistance package for Taiwan using equipment drawn from US inventory, and subsequently could seek funding to replenish its stockpiles.
“This is part of our long-standing commitment to upholding our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act and other US policies and to doing our part to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.
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Committee members also warned of the more immediate threat of a US default if Congress and President Joe Biden can’t agree on raising the debt limit.
“Xi Jinping has assessed the United States as a flawed and failing political and economic system,” said Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, referring to China’s leader. “Nothing we could do would reinforce that impression more than defaulting on our national debt or failing to appropriate.”
Raimondo, Blinken
Raimondo, who oversees controls on high-technology exports to countries that present national security threats, said that a stopgap funding bill at current levels would mean that Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security would have fewer employees to check that exported technology — especially to China — is being used in ways that comply with US law.
“We will not be able to do all we do, and US technology will get into the hands of malign actors and China,” she said.
Blinken said that China has fully accredited ambassadors in each of its roughly 180 diplomatic posts while many of the 173 US embassies are under interim leaders. He called on the Senate to act quickly to confirm presidential nominees as well as to finance the government.
“We’re penalizing ourselves if we’re not getting our full team on the field as quickly as possible,” Blinken said. “It’s simply not a serious way to compete.”
But Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said the Biden administration hadn’t done enough to combat China’s actions, from its engagement in Africa to its purchase of oil from Iran in defiance of US and European sanctions.
“Everything we’ve done in the last two years, in my view, has made every bad actor more emboldened,” he said.
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