The recent Chinese long-range missile test — a nuclear-capable projectile launched from a surfaced submarine — and a new Pentagon assessment signal a rapidly intensifying strategic challenge from Beijing across military, cyber, and industrial lines, demanding precise, effective congressional responses that protect American technological leadership without handing global markets to Chinese providers.
Early one morning a Chinese nuclear submarine surfaced in the Pacific and fired a ballistic missile with a dummy warhead, a move that prompted Japan to track falling debris and drew protests from regional partners. That test was the first of its kind since 2024 and was plainly intended as a deliberate signal to audiences at home and abroad. The event underlines that the threat is active and evolving, not hypothetical or distant. Americans should treat it as a clear escalation in capability and intent.
The Pentagon’s annual report on the People’s Liberation Army lays out stark projections: nine aircraft carriers by 2035, a nuclear stockpile moving past 1,000 warheads by 2030, and a directive from Xi Jinping to prepare to seize Taiwan by 2027. Those facts are not mere numbers on a page; they represent expanding reach and resources that alter strategic calculations across the Indo-Pacific. Coupled with sophisticated cyber intrusions that have targeted U.S. critical infrastructure, the pattern is worrying. These cyber operations, often described in government assessments as capable of disrupting power, water, and pipelines, are especially alarming because they target vulnerabilities at home.
Reports also indicate Chinese personnel have been training Russian forces in radiological, biological, and chemical methods on the battlefield in Ukraine, signaling operational cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. That partnership is not abstract diplomacy; it is practical, real-time exchange of battlefield techniques during the largest land war in Europe since World War II. The strategic alignment between two revisionist powers changes threat dynamics and complicates deterrence calculations. The United States and its allies must factor that cooperation into policy decisions and force posture choices.
Having served in the Trump administration, I watched warning signs calcify into crises when they were allowed to fester without decisive responses. That experience underlines a simple point: early, well-targeted action matters. Congress has a legitimate impulse to assemble tools that match the scale of Beijing’s challenge, from export controls to sanctions to cyber defenses. But the utility of any package depends on whether its provisions actually address how adversaries try to evade restrictions and seize advantage.
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One proposal now before the Senate, the Remote Access Security Act, aims to prevent Beijing from finding backdoor ways around chip export bans, but its reach is broader than the problem it claims to fix. Drafted in sweeping terms, it risks sweeping up ordinary cloud services and trusted partnerships with allies into a regulatory net. If American cloud and AI firms are forced to walk away from major foreign markets, the vacancy will be filled by Chinese providers such as Huawei and others that operate under Beijing’s control. That outcome would undercut U.S. influence over global technology standards and hand strategic advantage to competitors.
Bundling multiple AI and semiconductor export measures into next year’s defense bill makes political sense and could speed enactment, but bundling is only prudent if each measure stands up on its own merits. Tough-sounding titles are not the same as durable protections. Lawmakers should prioritize narrowly tailored controls that block chip smuggling, curb technology transfer to the PLA, and deter cyber intrusions into infrastructure without creating permanent, open-ended regulatory authorities. Durable results require precision, not broad grants of discretion that last beyond the immediate crisis.
Winning the competition over AI and semiconductors is about more than manufacturing better chips; it is about whose platforms and standards the rest of the world adopts. If policy pushes American companies out of key markets, then the global digital foundation will be set by those who remain. That would shape commercial ecosystems, security standards, and political influence for a generation. Congress should craft rules that preserve market access for allies while denying Beijing the means to undercut U.S. advantages.
The missile test this week is an urgent reminder that Beijing is moving on multiple fronts simultaneously: strategic weapons tests, battlefield cooperation with Russia, and cyber operations that threaten critical infrastructure. American responses must match that multi-domain challenge with clarity and effectiveness. Passing more bills that merely invoke China without solving core vulnerabilities will feel proactive but will leave the country exposed.
Lawmakers must focus on solutions that fix concrete problems — stopping chip smuggling networks, hardening energy and water systems against intrusions, and preventing the transfer of advanced military technologies to the PLA. Precision matters in legislation as it does in deterrence. Anything less risks turning symbolic action into strategic surrender while adversaries continue to build capability and influence.
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