US says challenges posed by China exceed those of Cold War

WASHINGTON - The challenges to the United States posed by China exceed those of the Cold War, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on Sept 18, charging that Beijing’s support for Russia’s defence industry came directly from China’s leadership.

President Joe Biden’s administration has been explicit that it is not seeking a cold war with China, but increasingly, analysts and members of the US Congress have said escalating global competition between the two superpowers resembled a different but new style of cold war.

Mr Campbell told a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that Washington needed to maintain a bipartisan focus on China and step up the speed of US naval shipbuilding and the capacity of the US defence manufacturing base.

“Frankly, the Cold War pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that China presents. It’s not just the military challenges. It’s across the board. It’s in the Global South. It is in technology,” he said.

Foreign crises, including

Russia’s war in Ukraine

and the Israel-Hamas conflict, have created distractions for Mr Biden’s efforts to focus on China and the Indo-Pacific region.

Mr Biden vowed early in his administration to not let China surpass the US as global leader.

China’s Mr Xi Jinping and Russia’s Mr Vladimir Putin, the leaders of the US’ two most powerful rivals, in May pledged

a “new era” of partnership

and cast Washington as an aggressive Cold War hegemon.

Mr Campbell said increasing the speed of US warship output should be of the highest priority over the next decade.

“This is a naval time,” he said, calling increasing the speed with which US Navy ships are designed and built “the most important thing that we need to do over the course of the next 10 years”.

“The Navy has to step up. We have to step up with them,” he said.

Mr Campbell, who met Nato and European Union officials earlier in September to provide allies with details of China’s “substantial support” to Russia’s military industrial base, has said Russia was, in return, supporting Beijing with submarine and missile technology.

“The most worrisome thing is that it comes from the very top,” Mr Campbell said, referring to senior Chinese leaders’ support for Moscow. He added that China has been supporting Russia’s drone activity in Ukraine.

The Republican chairman of the committee, Mr Michael McCaul, was critical of the extent of the so-called excluded technologies list for

the Aukus defence project with Australia and Britain

that is part of efforts to stand up to China, including restrictions covering unmanned underwater vehicles.

Mr Campbell called relaxing US curbs on technology sharing vital for Aukus but said the list did not ban sharing particular technologies, just that each case would have to be reviewed.

At the same time, he said, “we need to make this usable for defence planners and others that are making billion-dollar investments”.

Mr Campbell said

a summit of the Quad countries

– Australia, India, Japan and the US – that Mr Biden will host on Sept 21 would include “big announcements” showing substantial progress to help Pacific and South-east Asian nations track illegal fishing fleets, most of which were Chinese.

He also mentioned plans for discussions on increased security cooperation in the Indian Ocean involving India and other nations.

He said US Indo-Pacific Commander, Admiral Samuel Paparo, has been asked to help “fuse together our national military approach, security approach” there.

“This is the new frontier, working more closely with a partner like India in the Indian Ocean,” he said. REUTERS