The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the “Strategic Competition Act of 2021” late last month, which has won Democratic praise for its focus on confronting China and its all-encompassing scope. However, the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative media outlet, recently noted that former Defense Department officials and Republicans have criticized the bill for allocating a small and unbalanced budget to defense-related matters, making it difficult for the Defense Department to perform.
The “Strategic Competition Act,” introduced by Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.Y.), reportedly calls for expanding science and technology research, strengthening diplomatic countermeasures against China, and expanding military deployments in the Indo-Pacific region in an effort to keep China at bay in every direction. However, in the $7.7 billion budget, the U.S. defense strength-related content is not much, and mainly focused on personnel training, arms sales and allied cooperation, and little ink on expanding the size of the U.S. military, to enhance the immediate war effort.
Members of the House Armed Services Committee criticized the Senate Democrats for asking the Defense Department to use a small amount of resources to reach ambitious goals, and pointed out that the bill’s total budget can actually fill the gap between this year’s and next year’s defense budgets under inflation. It is understood that Biden announced early next year’s budget, $715 billion allocated to the Department of Defense, although the amount than this year’s budget increased, but after taking into account the inflation factor, the actual budget to get a decline.
David Faith, a researcher at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a think tank in Washington, and a senior official at the Department of Defense in the Trump era, pointed out that unless the Senate can improve the defense-related budget, the Strategic Competition Act will be reduced to a non-financial source. The bill is a directive to the Senate. He charged that while the Biden administration is generally correct about the challenges posed by China and the risks facing the United States, it is unwilling to be generous with its defense budget, “creating confusion for our adversaries and friends alike.
Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Okla.) made it clear that the Chinese Navy has 360 ships and the U.S. Navy has only 297, and that congressional Democrats are preventing the United States from standing up to China by failing to fund the U.S. Navy.
However, Defense News, a weekly magazine, commented that focusing on defense budget figures is to ignore other aspects that could strengthen national security. For example, improving infrastructure, enhancing economic competitiveness, expanding local manufacturing of key technologies, and investing in future research and development programs that could be applied to the military could all improve the U.S.’ ability to compete with China. Furthermore, the U.S. must face the security threat posed by China’s military power indefinitely, so the government’s budget should also be far-sighted.
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