Sen. Tom Cotton has introduced legislation that calls for $43 billion in funding for military infrastructure, weapons and other related assets as part of a larger effort to confront China’s military might in the Indo-Pacific region.
“The Chinese Communist Party will try to exploit the world’s weakness in the wake of a virus it unleashed. We cannot allow it to succeed. The FORCE Act will greatly strengthen the United States’ position in the Indo-Pacific, allowing us to block China’s goals of regional dominance, and ultimately, competition with the United States,” Cotton (R-Ark.) said in a statement announcing his bill.
Cotton refers to the bill, dubbed the “Forging Operational Resistance to Chinese Expansion (FORCE) Act,” as a “critical investment in the United States’ ability to compete with China.”
“The bill will help thwart the Chinese Communist Party’s main geopolitical aim in the wake of the China virus: pushing the United States out of the Western Pacific, intimidating its neighbors, and achieving cross-strait unification with Taiwan via military force,” the Arkansas Republican’s announcement read.
Cotton, a staunch China critic who has lambasted the Communist country for covering up its role in the virus’ spread, also unveiled a bill last week that would allow Americans to sue China over the pandemic.
That bill, introduced with Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), would allow Americans to “recover damages for death, injury, and economic harm caused by the Wuhan Virus.”
They said the legislation would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to create a narrow exception for “damages caused by China’s dangerous handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.”