WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of former senior US national security officials urged Congress on Wednesday to dedicate resources to President Joe Biden’s recent order to limit certain outward US investments to China, calling it a top priority.
Twenty-one veteran officials — including former deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration Matt Pottinger, and Colin Kahl, who stepped down as assistant secretary of defense for policy in July — sent a letter to congressional leaders, ordering “a positive step in the backlog process to restrict adversaries’ access to US capital.”
“The United States has to take care of that [China] and other foreign adversaries are unable to use our financial dynamism and openness against us in ways that continue to threaten our national security and prosperity,” they wrote in the letter reviewed by Reuters, addressed to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Further developing transparency and review of outward investment should be “one of your top foreign policy priorities,” they wrote, calling it essential that Congress allocate resources for implementation.
Biden’s order, issued last week but expected to be executed next year, is designed to prevent US capital and expertise from helping China develop technologies that could support military modernization and enhance US national security. undermine.
It authorizes the US Treasury Secretary to prohibit or restrict US investment in Chinese entities in three sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and certain artificial intelligence systems.
Peter Harrell, a former Biden National Security Council official, and former U.S. Indo-Pacific Command commanders Harry Harris and Philip Davidson, were among the other officials who endorsed the letter.
China has said it is “deeply concerned” about the order, though some US lawmakers have criticized it for having too many loopholes.
(Reporting by Michael Martina; editing by Sharon Singleton)
