The House GOP is about to make a huge mistake that will redound to the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party.

The leadership of the House Financial Services Committee is poised to prevent a crackdown on a very troubling trend: Beijing’s use of U.S. capital flows — and the expertise that comes with private investment — to develop technologies with which it hopes to one day kill Americans.

Obviously, China’s military buildup is a major concern, with the Pentagon warning in October that the growth of the Chinese nuclear program exceeds previous estimates and that the People’s Liberation Army is continuing its efforts to build up an overseas presence.

And there’s wide recognition of the threat. But when it comes to grappling with the fact that Americans are fueling the development of Chinese military technology, some officials are refusing to come to grips with the fact that there needs to be a comprehensive response.

The White House took a swing and a miss this summer, with President Biden issuing a watered-down executive order that put in place restrictions on U.S. venture-capital and private-equity investments in only three Chinese tech sectors. It was a start, but a disappointing one.

A stronger solution was supposed to be included in the annual defense-policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. That provision, proposed by Senators John Cornyn (R., Texas) and Bob Casey (D., Pa.), would require Americans to provide notification of all investments in a wider list of critical Chinese tech sectors with military applications.

That solution is also weaker than it should be, but, again, at least it’s a start — and, unlike the executive order, enshrines a screening process in statute.

But House Financial Services chairman Patrick McHenry is standing in the way. This week, he escalated a campaign that he’s waged against broad-based China-focused investment restrictions, reportedly keeping the Cornyn-Casey provision out of the NDAA.

He explained this position in a recent letter addressed to other House GOP committee chairmen. He made two chief points. First, that the outbound-investment bill will prevent Americans from serving on the boards of Chinese companies and “prevent Americans from going abroad to pry open the world’s most opaque major economy.”

That might well be the case, but Americans should not serve on the boards of Chinese firms entangled in Beijing’s military-civil fusion program. The point of the proposed investment restrictions is to make it more difficult, not easier, for Americans to offer their expertise to Chinese firms involved in the development of critical technologies with military applications. Does McHenry really want Americans to serve on the boards of Chinese firms that work on, say, the PLA’s hypersonic weapons?

His second point, that Congress should instead pass legislation to force the implementation of full blocking sanctions targeting Chinese military-industrial-complex companies, is trickier. Of course, the U.S. should continue to apply sanctions and export controls to Chinese military firms, and the administration should be pressed to use authorities it has so far declined to employ.

But the alternative legislation that McHenry is pushing is little more than a political sleight of hand to deflect charges that his committee opposes hard-nosed legislation to tackle this challenge. The alternative bill would only press Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to come up with a list of companies to sanction.

It’s not a bad proposal, but by itself, it’s a limited approach that leaves a lot on the table and places too much trust in two officials who have played leading roles in the president’s détente with China. By contrast, the outbound-investment-screening mechanism is broad enough to catch a wide range of activities, but narrowly tailored in such a way that it would target specific industries. Most important, these proposals are not mutually exclusive.

But that apparently doesn’t matter to some House Republicans, who seem philosophically opposed to broad-based restrictions on U.S. capital flows to a formidable adversary preparing for war with America. If these lawmakers truly care about winning this new Cold War and deterring Chinese aggression, they’ve got an odd way of showing it.