The Biden administration is slow-walking approvals for $19 billion in Taiwan weapons purchases and not aggressively imposing congressionally-mandated sanctions on Chinese companies because it fears angering the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), several Republicans claimed during a July 18 House hearing on the State Department’s proposed Fiscal Year 2024 Eastern Asia and Pacific budget.
That fear has become increasingly visible not only to the CCP, but to nations across the world and especially those in the Asia Pacific, they said, referring to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent trips to Beijing despite February’s spy balloon incident, recent disclosures about China’s Cuba spy base, and revelations that Chinese entities recently hacked thousands of State and Commerce department email accounts.
“This administration appears indifferent to CCP hostility with its appeasing … to facilitate talks,” said House Foreign Relations Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). “I think our recent diplomacy towards the CCP has demonstrated weakness—and weakness invites aggression—and emboldened dictators such as Chairman Xi.
“In some ways,” he continued, “I think this administration finds itself trapped in a cycle where the CCP dictates the terms, the timing, and conditions of our meetings rather than the other way around. You should be at the table at a place of strength and leverage, not out of weakness and appeasement.”
Not ‘Pulling Punches’ Against CCP
Mr. McCaul said there are reports in the press “that the State Department is no longer enforcing sanctions, the human rights sanctions, including those under the Uighur Muslim Rights Act. Do you have any information on that?”“It’s absolutely not true that we are pulling our punches in any way,” Mr. Kritenbrink said. “And in fact, the United States government and the State Department have taken an unprecedented number of steps against the Chinese in a broad range of areas that has continued from the beginning of this administration. It has continued up until today.”
Under the Biden administration, he said, numerous individual CCP members have been sanctioned while 31 People’s Republic of China (PRC) entities have been sanctioned under the Forced Labor Prevention Act and another 26 by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.
Mr. McCaul said it appears the State Department has removed “export controls” barriers on Huawei and “other sanction packages as well,” claiming “Congressionally-enacted sanctions under the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act have been repeatedly killed by the State Department as well.” He asked Mr. Kritenbrink to confirm if the administration has delayed or pulled down exports to licenses to the company.
Mr. Kritenbrink said the export controls on Huawei remain in place and that the administration has “taken an extraordinary number of actions over the course of this administration. We do not pull our punches. That is not what we’re about.”
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said that, during a six-month period in 2021, despite being in the State Department’s restricted entities list, less than 1 percent of Huawei’s license applications were denied, and it secured more than $60 billion worth of licensing technology.
“Last week,” he said, “it was reported that Huawei is poised to return to the 5G smartphone industry, and it’s also been reported that Huawei has had an active involvement in the Chinese spy base in Cuba. You believe Huawei should be given licenses on any U.S. origin technology? Where’s that line?”
Mr. Kritenbrink said it was “somewhat difficult for me to speak to the details of the licensing decisions on Huawei given that’s the Commerce Department’s decision. The position that we take is we should do whatever we need to do to defend American national security. I would say we’ve taken an unprecedented number of actions against China.”
Taiwan Waiting for $19 Billion in Weapons
Noting he sponsored the bill that created the Taiwan Foreign Military Financing (FMF) fund, Mr. McCaul asked why the Biden administration and the State Department have not tapped into the $500 million fund that could finance the acquisition of $19 billion in weapons for Taiwan.Mr. Kritenbrink said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in May laid out the parameters for how the seed funding could facilitate up to $19 billon in 23 different weapons purchases for the island nation’s defense through the FMF, which functions similarly to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the Pentagon and administration to purchase weapons and munitions outside U.S. stockpiles and without Congressional approval.
“I don’t have anything further to add to his commentary,” said Mr. Kritenbrink, offering to discuss the matter in a classified setting. “But I will reiterate, we are committed to using all means at our disposal. We’re grateful to you in Congress, in this committee, for those tools. And we will use it.”
“We’re not seeing that authority exercised,“ said Mr. McCaul. ”Certainly, I need a better answer than ‘We’re doing everything possible.’
“I’m just not seeing it happen. Meanwhile, Taiwan doesn’t have any weapons. Period. As we’ve learned in Ukraine, we need to provide these weapons systems before a conflict erupts, not after. That is the goal of deterrence.”
Subcommittee chair Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.) said the “$19 billion backlog in weapons deliveries” is inexcusable, and the State Department has been dodgy in responding to Congressional queries about delays in transferring weapons to Taipei.
“We must ensure we’re doing all that we can now to bolster Taiwan’s defense against an increasingly aggressive PRC. It is clear our allies in the Indo-Pacific share our concern about the PRC’s growing aggression towards Taiwan,” she said.
During a June trip to the region, Ms. Kim said the message was loud and clear:
“We heard the same thing from all of our allies, that Ukraine today could be Taiwan tomorrow, and that U.S. leadership is key to bringing democratic countries together in the fight against authoritarianism.”
She said that “instead of pursuing competitive actions against this PRC, we are chasing Chinese Communist Party officials for fruitless engagements,” which the State Department is “prioritizing …with their counterparts in Beijing.”
Competitors Don’t Take Adversarial Acts
Noting that Mr. Blinken, upon his return from Beijing last month, said the “spy balloon chapter was closed” and that President Joe Biden dismissed the episode as “silly,” Ms. Kim said she disagreed.“The chapter on this spy balloon is not closed. The American people still have so many unanswered questions about this flagrant violation of American airspace and, given that it flew across the entirety of the continental United States, were questioning this administration’s ability to respond to provocation from the PRC in the future,” she said.
Since the spy balloon incident, Ms. Kim said, “the PRC has raided American companies—namely, it banned Micron from its market—and threatened restrictions on critical minerals and hacked our top officials” in the State and Commerce departments.
“So,” she asked Mr. Kritenbrink, “since February, can you name one substantial action the PRC has taken to improve relations with the United States other than taking our meetings on their terms?”
“First of all,“ he responded, ”I would completely disagree with the characterization that we took meetings on their terms. In fact, just the opposite is true. The meetings happened on our terms, in our timeline that we insisted on.”
He did, however, agree with many of Ms. Kim’s assessments.
“Some of the steps that China has taken against Micron, and against other American firms, absolutely contradict their supposed statement that ‘China is open for business’ and that they need foreign investment,” Mr. Kritenbrink said. “It undermined the business environment; that is not in their interest. And it certainly increases tension in the relationship, and these are issues that Secretary Blinken raised directly when he was in China.”
Joining Ms. Kim in looking for answers to some basic questions were Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) and Mr. Davidson.
“Is China adhering to its commitments under the World Trade Organization?” the Ohio lawmaker asked.
“That’s a very broad question,” Mr. Kritenbrink said. “Congressman, the answer is ‘No.’”
Did China adhere to its commitments during the COVID pandemic? To not militarize the South China Sea? To not engage in cyber theft of intellectual property? Mr. Davidson asked.
“Nope,” he answered his own question. “They’re not doing that, either. Can you name one commitment that China is complying with?”
“Look, Congressman, I didn’t come here today to defend the People’s Republic of China,” Mr. Kritenbrink said. “I’ll let counterparts in Beijing do that. What I did was come to defend what this administration has done. We have a clear-eyed, tough, realistic approach to the PRC.”
But the secretary was not done with Q & A for the day.
“Assistant Secretary,” said Mr. Mills. “You’re very good at eating up time and playing politics. So I'd really love it if you could just try and give me direct answers. It’s been a lot of skirting around. I’ve heard you talk about America’s pulling punches multiple times. That’s because we’re not throwing any. Can you describe what the difference between a competitor and an adversary is?”
“You know, we spend every day on these issues. I didn’t come prepared to give you a formal definition,” Mr. Kritenbrink replied. “But I would argue that they’re both.”
Mr. Mills said he wondered how “clear-eyed” the Biden administration can be in dealing with China when it can’t determine the difference between a competitor and an adversary.
China has clearly transcended being a competitor and is now “more adversary than anything,” he said, and the threat is not far off in the Western Pacific but growing closer every day.
“They’re now building spy and joint training bases 92 miles off of my state, my state of Florida, right there in Cuba,” Mr. Mills said. “So, I think that’s adversarial actions more than competitive actions.”
