Thank you for the chance to address you today on the conference process for the China competition bills.
With inflationary risks rising daily, we can’t afford to spend billions on controversial, partisan priorities. We must be targeted and focused on our approach.
Instead of focusing on the targeted bipartisan investments in basic research that would help America excel in competition against China, the COMPETES Act is filled with priorities that did not enjoy bipartisan support.
Whoever leads in the next generation of science and technology will set the rules of the road across scientific fields for decades to come.
As much as 85% of America’s long-term economic growth is due to advances in science and technology. And we cannot take that continued growth for granted.
Competing with China in the next generation requires targeted investments in basic research and emerging technologies, investments in our STEM workforce, fully funding the CHIPS Act to increase our semiconductor manufacturing capacity, smart foreign policy approaches that hold the CCP accountable for its human rights violations and genocide of Uyghurs, and closer ties with our allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
The CCP has made it clear its goal is to become the world’s top economic and military superpower by 2025, and has shown it will undermine human rights, freedom, and decency in pursuit of this quest for world dominance. Xi Jinping is watching us and hopes that we are unsuccessful in producing a bipartisan and bicameral bill that improves our ability to compete with him globally.
We must send a strong message that the United States will continue to lead on the world stage and will counter this aggression.
I look forward to working my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to ensure we increase our competitiveness and be less reliant on adversaries like China for our supplies of critical technologies. Thank you and yield back.