Bipartisan Lawmakers Dismiss China’s Threat of ‘Catastrophic’ Conflict

Chinese leader accuses U.S. of 'encirclement and suppression of China'

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) (L) is joined by Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) to introduce the RESTRICT Act at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 7, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Lawmakers from both parties hit back at China after the communist regime’s foreign minister demanded the United States stop viewing Beijing as a rival—or face consequences.

On March 7, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) dismissed China’s threat and reminded the Chinese regime of its actions against the United States.

“I’ll just point out this—$500 billion a year of intellectual property theft,” Warner said during a press briefing when answering a question from an NTD reporter. “For years, the use of entities called the Confucius Institutes at many universities that were used to prey upon Chinese exchange students.”

Warner also pointed to TikTok, criticizing the popular Chinese video-sharing app for allowing “Chinese engineers” access to American user data. TikTok is owned by China-based parent company ByteDance, which has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Together with a bipartisan group that included Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Warner held the Tuesday press conference to unveil the senators’ new legislation—the RESTRICT Act—which aims to address threats posed by technology from foreign adversaries, including China’s TikTok.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) speaks during a news conference to introduce the RESTRICT Act with (L-R) Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.), Sen. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 7, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“We have seen an authoritarian regime that literally changed Chinese law in 2016, that requires that any company based in China, their number one responsibility is not to their customers, not to their shareholders, it is to the Communist Party of China,” Warner added. “That is a very different system than what we have in this country.”

China’s national intelligence law, which went into effect in 2017, requires Chinese individuals and organizations around the world to “support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts” and “protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.”

Threat

China’s foreign minister Qin Gang, formerly the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, leveled the threats during a press conference on Tuesday on the sidelines of an annual Party meeting in Beijing.

Qin accused the United States of harboring a “distorted” perception by seeing China as its “primary rival and biggest geopolitical challenge.”

If the United States continues to go down this “wrong path,” Qin warned, “no amount of guardrails” could prevent “conflict and confrontation.”

“Who will bear the catastrophic consequences?” Qin asked.

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby and Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) also dismissed Qin’s threat on Tuesday.

“We seek a strategic competition with China. We do not seek conflict,” Kirby told reporters.

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) questions Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell during a hearing at the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 14, 2022. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“Let’s start with what’s distorted in China,” Cammack told Fox News. “How about the fact that they’ve been distorting and manipulating their currency for decades? How about the fact that they have a distorted human rights record where they are actively engaging in genocide within their own country?”

The U.S. government has declared China’s suppression against Uyghurs in its far-western region of Xinjiang as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”

“I would say that they’re trying to distract from what’s really going on, when they threatened us for shooting down their spy balloon, when they are starting to talk tough now, because we’re getting closer to the origins of COVID and their responsibility in that, that is when they’re starting to get scared,” Cammack added.

“So this tough talk, it’s nothing more than a cover for people who are extraordinarily worried about the truth coming out.”

Xi Jinping 

Separately on Tuesday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping also condemned what he called the U.S.-led “suppression” of China.

“Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-round containment, encirclement, and suppression of China,” Xi said in a speech at an annual Communist Party congress in Beijing.

In response to Xi’s remarks, Warner said the United States and China are in competition even though the economies of the two nations are “inexorably tied.”

“Their administration lies on a daily basis,” Thune said in response to Xi’s remarks. “The message is yes, we have some symbiotic relationship with China when it comes to our two economies. But that has to be conducted in an open, transparent way in which we have an opportunity to determine whether or not they are playing by the rules.”