Challenge the Challenger
On April 21, after hours of debate and several amendments, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations voted 21-1 in approval of the Bill to Address Issues Involving the People’s Republic of China, also known as the Strategic Competition Act of 2021.
The over 280-page bill was based on the Strengthening Trade, Regional Alliances, Technology, and Economic and Geopolitical Initiatives Concerning China Act proposed by Jim Risch, then Chairman of the committee, and three other Republican senators in July 2020. As the Republicans lost control of the Senate after the 2020 elections, Democrat Robert Menendez took over the panel’s chairmanship and proposed the new bill.
At an earlier hearing, Menendez had already stressed that the right basic framework for thinking about the U.S.-China relationship would be that of “strategic competition,” entailing a
