Lawmakers signal tough stand on China in proposed defense policy bill

Congress is ordering the Pentagon to conduct a major study of a U.S. war with China around 2030 under the draft of a compromise defense authorization bill approved by House and Senate conferees this week.

The proposed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024 also orders the Pentagon to study the economic impact of a People’s Liberation Army invasion of Taiwan, an action President Biden has said would set in motion a U.S. military response.

The 3,093-page conference report contains the two study requirements along with more than a dozen China provisions, reflecting a bipartisan concern on Capitol Hill regarding the growing military threat from Beijing.

Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees on Thursday appealed to fellow lawmakers to back the compromise NDAA legislation, which sets spending targets and lays down policy guidance on a wide range of issues for the military for the coming fiscal year.

The bill carries its usual load of controversial policy riders, including a provision to extend for four months government surveillance powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and provisions dialing back the Pentagon’s programs related to diversity and “inclusion” in the ranks.

In a joint statement on the legislation, Reps. Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, and Adam Smith, Washington Democrat, chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Sens. Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat and Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican, chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the country “faces unprecedented threats from China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. It is vital that we act now to protect our national security.”

The compromise $886 billion defense bill, considered the last major must-pass legislation of the year, doesn’t include a GOP-backed measure that would have blocked the Defense Department’s plan to fund travel expenses for service members to get abortions in other states. The exclusion has drawn the ire of some GOP members of Congress but may improve the bill’s chances of winning bipartisan support in both chambers.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson “worked with [Senate Majority Leader Charles E.] Schumer to cut a deal that removes all abortion and trans surgery prohibitions we passed under [former GOP Speaker Kevin] McCarthy,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, wrote on social media. “This was a total sellout of conservative principles and a huge win for Democrats.”

The China war study provision calls on the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, the internal think tank that gauges U.S. and adversary military power, to conduct a yearlong investigation of a potential U.S.-China conflict and present it to Congress by Dec. 1, 2024.

The net assessment office has come under fire in the past for producing what critics say are thinly researched and irrelevant studies without producing primary reports on U.S. and adversary strengths and weaknesses. A Pentagon spokesman had no immediate comment on the ONA war study requirement.

The China provisions cover a wide range of concerns, including mandated reports on Beijing’s military capabilities, Taiwan, China’s role in the illegal fentanyl trade, Beijing’s reliance on foreign energy sources, Chinese “Influence operations” around the world and the impact of a U.S.-Chinese war on the region. The bill also calls for an audit of all funds that may have been diverted to the virology institute in Wuhan, China widely suspected of having played a role in the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Taiwan report mandated in the bill also will explore other coercive actions China could take, such as the seizure of outlying Taiwanese islands, the impact of a blockade of the island on the U.S. military, and how the Pentagon would work with other U.S. agencies affected by a Taiwan blockade.