Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman James Risch (R., Idaho) concluded that Foggy Bottom’s plan has so far been inadequate.

A State Department campaign against Beijing’s global influence, funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, is falling far short of its lofty objectives, a key senator warned the outgoing Biden administration today.

That program, the Countering People’s Republic of China Influence Fund, was first enacted by Congress in 2019 to back global measures against China’s growing influence efforts, such as Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative for global infrastructure and disinformation campaigns. But in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman James Risch warned that Foggy Bottom’s implementation of the fund has so far been inadequate.

“Despite some improvement, over the last two years, the Committee found that State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) implementation of CPIF continues to fall short of Congressional intent and fails to adequately address the growing threat from China,” wrote Risch in the letter, which was obtained exclusively by National Review.

Risch’s team received State Department briefings on more than half of the projects backed by funding provided in 2023 and concluded that many of them are not “linked to the most central counter-PRC [People’s Republic of China] imperatives.”

One of these was State’s attempt to fund a national railway in Liberia — which Risch wrote “would not strengthen Liberia’s ability to compete with PRC-supported mining operations in the country or the PRC-based railway in neighboring Guinea.” He blocked the project, accusing State of using “weak or even bogus” justifications for it.

Risch also wrote that he was concerned that several projects meant to address critical minerals supply chains were too “disjointed” to be effective.

He set out three recommendations for the State Department, suggesting that it seek more input from different department bureaus, set up successful projects to receive funding from the main State Department budget, and describe clearer guidelines for the initiative.

With Blinken stepping down in five days, his likely successor, Senator Marco Rubio, is likely to oversee any changes to the counter-China fund. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, Rubio said that confronting malign Chinese behavior would be one of his top priorities if confirmed as secretary of state.

Chinese propaganda outlets have criticized the initiative and legislation authorizing new funding for it. In September, the China Daily asserted that it “violates the basic norms governing international relations, raises concerns that the positive momentum in the efforts of the two sides to repair bilateral relations might become a flash in the pan.”