Congress Has a Chance to Turn Tough Talk on China Into Action

There is no more bipartisan issue in the U.S. Congress than concern over the economic statecraft of China — both here at home and abroad. On May 16, I testified in front of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and outlined my concerns.

Next week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs will mark up its funding bill for 2025 and the full committee the week after. In those bills exist several opportunities for the Congress to help the U.S. lead in several active “zones of competition” between the U.S. and China. Some of those line-items in the budget are subtle, so I’m outlining them here to clarify their importance to U.S. interests and hope the Congress takes its opportunity to exert U.S. leadership.

First, if the U.S. eliminates all funding for the United Nations regular budget, the U.S. will lose its vote in the U.N. General Assembly. China is now the second largest contributor to U.N. regular and peacekeeping budgets and a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. China is one of the top 10 providers of troops to U.N. peacekeeping missions. The U.N. is far from perfect, but China and Russia would love nothing more than to see the U.S. weakened and disengaged.

Second, the Inter-American Development Bank’s private sector lending arm called IDB Invest needs $75M in 2025 to attract private capital for co-financing projects. More often than not, this is U.S. private capital, which is exactly what we want to crowd out China.

This down payment will ultimately leverage a total of $3.5 billion that will help crowd out China in our own hemisphere. Even worse, if the U.S. doesn’t pay for its shareholding, China will buy the U.S. shares and thereby weaken U.S. leadership in favor of that of China — a mistake the U.S. made once already in 2015 when it gave up about 5% of its shares to China.

Third, the Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF) is a G20 initiative at the World Bank which attracts private capital to help close the infrastructure investment gap around the world. China sits on the GIF’s advisory council whereas the U.S. is out. If the U.S. puts in the requested $5 million contribution to the GIF, we can help start to bring U.S. leadership to critical infrastructure globally.

Time and time again, when the U.S. disengages — whether it be climate change, migration, development finance, terrorism, or pandemic preparedness — we allow worse actors in to fill the void.

Congress has a chance to turn their bipartisan posturing into bipartisan progress. Otherwise, we play straight into Beijing’s playbook and create an opening for China to expand their global chicanery.

Daniel F. Runde is a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also the author of the book “The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership Through Soft Power” (Bombardier Books, 2023).