This week the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) presented its Annual Report to Congress. The 575-page analysis is frank in its assessment of China’s growing threat to U.S. economic and national security interests.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is moving from “catching up” to “surpassing” the United States on economic, diplomatic and military fronts, vice chair Carolyn Bartholomew said in prepared testimony. “China’s leaders have grown increasingly aggressive and antagonistic.”
Robin Cleveland, chair of the Commission, expressed similar alarm in her opening statement. “China is an adversary presenting unique and immediate threats to our economic and security interests… [T]he challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party are not partisan—they are American concerns.”
Among its key policy recommendations, the report urges Congress to require sanctions or controls on a Chinese company to extend to its affiliates as well, and that the Federal Trade Commission be given the power to consider foreign government subsidies in business mergers.
“The past 20 years are littered with the CCP’s broken promises,” the report states. “A clear understanding of the CCP’s adversarial national security and economic ambitions is essential as U.S. and allied leaders develop the policies and programs that will define the conditions of global freedom and shape our future.”