House Republicans on the China select committee pushed for an additional $12 billion for the Indo-Pacific in a letter to congressional leaders on Sunday, calling the current funds in President Joe Biden’s supplemental funding package “wholly inadequate.”
During his Oval Office address advocating wartime aid on Oct. 20, Biden said that if Russia takes away Ukraine’s independence, conflict could spread to other parts of the world, such as the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East.
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“We strongly agree,” the Republicans stated in the letter obtained by the Washington Examiner, referencing Biden’s speech. “However, this is precisely why the resources dedicated to the Indo-Pacific in the administration’s proposed supplemental are wholly inadequate.”
Six Republicans led by House China select committee Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) asked for another $12 billion on top of the $2 billion allocated mostly for Taiwan of the $106 billion in supplemental funding Biden asked Congress to provide in emergency aid for Israel and Ukraine. The letter was sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
“America is a Pacific nation, and it is our long-standing and direct interest to ensure a stable and secure Indo-Pacific,” the letter said.
The lawmakers argued an additional $10 billion is needed to strengthen the military’s response in preparation for a possible conflict, while another $2 billion is necessary for America’s own military stockpiles to help Taiwan, and Biden should reauthorize $650 million that expires in fiscal 2023.
“Under PDA [Presidential Drawdown Authority], existing U.S. stocks of air defense systems, command-and-control equipment, gear for Taiwan’s reserve forces, land- and sea-based mines, and multiple launch rocket system vehicles could bolster Taiwan’s forces tomorrow,” the letter said.
The letter follows last week’s highly anticipated meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco as tensions between the two superpowers are on the rise over technological developments, economic factors, and the flow of fentanyl from China to the United States.
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“We have an opportunity to make a generational investment in our munitions industrial base and build weapons systems that are not only critical for Ukraine, for Israel, but are critical for our most important national security challenge, which is the CCP’s threat to Taiwan,” Gallagher said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“The most important form of communication to the Chinese Communist Party, far more important than anything President Biden said in San Francisco, is to surge hard power to the Indo-Pacific to make it impossible for Xi Jinping to conquer Taiwan, militarily. That is the language, the language of hard power, that dictators like Xi Jinping understand.”