[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 121 Introduced in House (IH)]

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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 population 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), behind 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;
Whereas the PRC possesses nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles;
Whereas the PRC does not share the democratic or free market 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 relationships with many 
        BRI-participating countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan;
Whereas the PRC has released few details about the BRI, despite widespread calls 
        from the United States, the International 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, ``indisputable'' 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 reunification of the motherland'';
Whereas Beijing's claims of sovereignty over Taiwan are belied by the fact that 
        the Taiwanese people have independently governed their island for over 
        70 years;
Whereas Taiwan is a vitally important friend and regional security partner of 
        the United States;
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 residents 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 participation 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 nation 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;
Whereas the PRC routinely pressures United States companies 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, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), 
That Congress--
            (1) recognizes that the People's Republic of China (PRC) 
        currently poses the greatest foreign threat to United States 
        peace, security, and stability;
            (2) recognizes that the PRC, regardless of future 
        leadership, will likely continue to be a major rival of the 
        United States in the coming decades, due to the enormous 
        cumulative size and scale of its population, economy, and 
        military capabilities; and
            (3) supports the Trump administration's overall strategic 
        approach to the PRC, grounded in principled realism and firm-
        but-measured competitive engagement whenever United States 
        national interests are at stake, that has been outlined in 
        sources including but not limited to--
                    (A) the United States Strategic Approach to the 
                People's Republic of China (May 2020);
                    (B) the National Defense Strategy of the United 
                States of America (October 2018);
                    (C) the National Cyber Strategy of the United 
                States of America (September 2018); and
                    (D) the National Security Strategy of the United 
                States of America (December 2017).
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