As we watch the war unfold, “no limits” unfortunately appears to be an entirely correct moniker.
While the West imposed sanctions to cripple Russia’s economy and cut off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s access to resources needed to wage his war, Russia turned to China.
According to U.S. intelligence reports, at the start of the war, Russian military hackers waged a cyberattack on Ukrainian internet services, disrupting the country’s critical military communications. Alarmingly but not surprisingly, China is reported to have given Russia a helping hand, launching cyberattacks of its own targeting Ukraine’s military and nuclear assets.
Now, as Russia’s resources become more and more strained, reports have found that China could potentially “supply semiconductors and other tech hardware to Russia as part of an effort to soften the impact of sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine.”
From trade to technology to messaging, the increasing coordination between these two autocratic regimes should greatly alarm Washington, Europe and all freedom-loving nations. Most importantly, it should serve as a wake-up call for Congress. In the face of a deepened China-Russia alliance, Washington must protect American leadership and our role as the world’s only superpower by defending and supporting technological innovation.
Technology is the foundation underlying the way nations run militaries, engage in trade and manage geopolitical affairs. Right now, we live in a world where hypersonic missiles or crippling cyber-attacks can be deployed with the click of a button. This means that access to microchips, quantum computing capabilities and other cutting-edge technologies are necessary for a strong military and national defense.
With such critical reliance on technology, we need to make sure the U.S. continues to carry the torch of technological prowess, especially as autocratic regimes like the ones in China and Russia try to change the rules and standards of the internet and radically alter the global tech landscape. Chinese President Xi Jinping has declared his intentions for China to become the world’s leading tech superpower, stating that “technological innovation has become the main battleground of the global playing field, and competition for tech dominance will grow unprecedentedly fierce.”
Unfortunately, some U.S. leaders would rather kowtow to—and in some cases fund—our adversaries than help the American tech sector adapt to ever-evolving challenges. The Biden administration is working on a new, disastrous Iran deal that would give the terrorist state access to more than $100 billion. Its focus should instead be on actually defending Americans by providing our military and our tech sector with the funding they need to ensure our nation has modern infrastructure ready to defend us from all threats, foreign and domestic.
We live in a world that appears to be falling apart at the seams, thanks to a lack of real leadership here in America and abroad. Congress should step up now to counter the Russia-China alliance, and to block the Biden administration from reinstating a disastrous deal that will certainly be used to fund weapons that will kill even more Americans and innocent bystanders in the future. This should easily be an issue with a veto-proof majority.
It is also vital that our elected officials ensure that the legal and regulatory environment in America is conducive to promoting domestic innovation and protecting American intellectual property from being stolen.
Innovation is what keeps America ahead of countries that want to supplant us. China continues its quest for economic and technological domination, now with Russia at its side. America and our allies cannot afford to cede our role as the world’s leader. Our elected officials need to start standing up for American innovation to ensure we can meet the growing China-Russia challenge head on. If we fail to keep our tech sector strong, our own standing in the world will be severely compromised and the lost ground likely unrecoverable.
Boris Epshteyn is a Newsweek Columnist and a former Special Assistant to President Trump.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
