Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is calling on President Joe Biden to “forcefully confront” China as an “enemy.”
In an op-ed published by Fox News on Monday, Cotton said, “President Biden pleaded at the United Nation’s General Assembly last week that ‘we are not seeking a new Cold War.’ Though too diffident even to speak the name ‘China,’ one supposes that’s what he meant.”
“Unfortunately, whether we seek it or not, Communist China has waged a Cold War against us for years. Our only choice is to win or lose,” he continued. “Last century, our Cold War with Soviet Russia was a decades-long struggle between two great powers for global economic, military, technological and ideological supremacy. Can there be any question that we’re engaged in such a confrontation with Communist China?”
The Arkansas senator when on to say that China “seeks to corrupt and recast the international system in its rotten image. China’s Belt and Road Initiative is one of the most ambitious imperial power plays ever conceived.”
“Through debt traps, bribery and monumental infrastructure projects, the Chinese Communist Party is trying to buy allies, expand its military power, and establish a global economic order dictated by Beijing,” he added.
Additionally, he said China is “bludgeoning American allies like Australia, Japan and European Union members with punitive economic actions to dissuade them from criticizing China’s deplorable human-rights record and from cooperating with the United States more generally.”
Cotton also argued that China “has waged economic war against America through product dumping, intellectual-property theft and industrial sabotage.”
Specifically, he explained that China “accounts for up to 80% of intellectual-property theft committed against the United States and more than 70% of counterfeit and pirated goods brought into our nation.” On top of that, he noted that about half of the FBI’s counterintelligence cases for “economic espionage” involve China.
He continued:
“And China’s rapid economic growth has funded one of the most aggressive military expansions in history. Since 2000, China has increased military spending by over 1,000%, it has more than tripled the size of its navy, and it has established the largest conventional ground-based missile arsenal in the world. More recently, China has exponentially increased its nuclear arsenal. This peacetime armament campaign may be in preparation for a major war, or it is an indicator of an escalating Cold War – or both.”
Cotton charged that China “works obsessively to preserve and export its totalitarian system.”
“At home, Xi Jinping has murdered, imprisoned and erased rivals and dissenters by the millions. He has also executed a campaign to silence any discussion of Western thought and values within the borders of China,” he said, adding, “Abroad, he has aided and, in some cases, propped up brutal regimes such as North Korea, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, among others. This axis of rogue nations is clearly intended to form a counterweight to our Western and democratic alliances.”
Finally, Cotton wrote, “President Biden must change course, call China by its name, and forcefully confront China as the enemy it is. America did not wish for a new Cold War, but now our only choice is to win or submit to Chinese dominion.”
“The future of America and the world is at stake,” he warned.